What Australian wallaby with a crescent mark on its thigh went extinct in 1956?

The Australian wallaby with a crescent mark on its thigh that went extinct around 1956 was the crescent nail-tail wallaby.

Also called the worong, it was a small marsupial of western and central Australia. Its pale, crescent-shaped flank marking gave the animal its common name, while a horny spur at the tip of its tail explains “nail-tail.” It weighed roughly 3.5 kilograms and lived in scrub, woodland, and semi-arid habitats.

The species declined sharply after European settlement. Habitat clearing, pastoralism, altered fire regimes, introduced rabbits, hunting, and predators such as foxes and feral cats all contributed. It remained in parts of the central Australian desert into the 1950s, but the last reported individual was killed in 1956. Some sources describe the final reliable sightings as earlier, so 1956 refers to the last recorded specimen rather than a precisely observed extinction moment.

It is often confused with the still-living tammar wallaby or with the bridled nail-tail wallaby, a close relative that has a different white “bridle” stripe.