Thylacoleo ("Pouch Lion") is an extinct genus of carnivorous marsupials that lived in Australia from the late Pliocene to the late Pleistocene (2 MYA to 46,000 years ago). Some of these "marsupial lions" were the largest mammalian predators in Australia of that time, with Thylacoleo carnifex approaching the weight of a small lion.
There are many similarities between prehistoric Australian megafauna and some mythical creatures from the aboriginal dreamtime