collected in the early 1830s from the Wellington Valley region of New South Wales by Major (later Sir) Thomas Mitchell, however they were not recognised as Thylacoleo at the time. The species was first described by Richard Owen in 1859, from a fragmentary specimen discovered by William Adeney near Lake Colungolac, near Camperdown in Victoria In 2002, eight remarkably complete skeletons of T. carnifex were discovered in a limestone cave under Nullarbor Plain, where the animals fell through a narrow opening in the plain above. Based on the placement of their skeletons, at least some survived the fall, only to die of thirst and starvation.http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/08/0807_020731_TVmegafauna.html In 2008, rock art depicting what some speculate to be Thylacoleo was discovered on the northwestern coast of the Kimberley. However, the thylacine, a marsupial that had a striped coat like depicted in the rock art, has been argued to be the morely likely subject of the work. The drawing represented only the second example of megafauna depicted by the indigenous inhabitants of Australia. The image contains details that would otherwise have remained only conjecture; the tail is depicted with a tufted tip, it has pointed ears rather than rounded, and the coat is striped. The prominence of the eye, a feature rarely shown in other animal images of the region, raises the possibility that the creature may have been a nocturnal hunter. In 2009, a second image was found that depicts a Thylacoleo interacting with a hunter who is in the act of spearing or fending the animal off with a multiple-barbed spear. Much smaller and less detailed than the 2008 find, it may depict a thylacine, but the comparative size indicates a Thylacoleo is more likely, meaning that it is possible that Thylacoleo was extant until more recently than previously thought. In 2016, trace fossils in Tight Entrance Cave were identified as being the scratch marks of a Thylacoleo. Fossils The first Thylacoleo fossil findings, discovered by Thomas Mitchell were found in the 1830s in the Wellington Valley of New South Wales, though not recognised as such at the time. The generic holotype, consisting of broken teeth, jaws, and a skull was discovered by a pastoralist, William Avery, near Lake Colungolac from which the species Thylacoleo carnifex was described by Richard Owen. It was not until 1966 that the first nearly-complete skeleton was found. The only pieces missing were a foot and the