parent_taxon thylacoleonidae
In biology , an organism is any contiguous living system , such as an ___MASK75___ , ___MASK63___ , fungus , archaeon , or bacterium . All known types of organisms are capable of some degree of response to stimuli , reproduction , growth and development and homeostasis . An organism consists of one or more cells ; when it has one cell it is known as a unicellular organism ; and when it has more than one it is known as a multicellular organism . Most unicellular organisms are of microscopic scale and are thus loosely described as microorganisms . Humans are multicellular organisms composed of many trillions of cells grouped into specialized tissues and organs . Solomon Islands is a sovereign country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania lying to the east of Papua New Guinea and northwest of Vanuatu and covering a land ___MASK2___ of . The country ' s capital , Honiara , is located on the island of Guadalcanal . The country takes its name from the Solomon Islands archipelago , which is a collection of Melanesian islands that also includes the North Solomon Islands ( part of Papua New Guinea ), but excludes outlying islands , such as Rennell and Bellona , and the Santa Cruz Islands . The ___MASK56___ lion (" Thylacoleo carnifex ") is an extinct species of carnivorous ___MASK56___ ___MASK44___ that lived in Australia from the early to the late Pleistocene ( 1 , 600 , 000  46 , 000 years ago ). Despite its name , it is not closely related to the lion , but is a member of the order ___MASK42___ . Ants are eusocial ___MASK19___ of the family Formicidae and , along with the related wasps and bees , belong to the order Hymenoptera . Ants evolved from wasp - like ancestors in the Cretaceous period , about 99 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants . More than 12 , 500 of an estimated total of 22 , 000 species have been classified . They are easily identified by their elbowed antennae and the distinctive node - like structure that forms their slender waists . The Pliocene ( also Pleiocene ) Epoch is the epoch in the geologic timescale that extends from 5 . 333 million to 2 . 58 million years BP . It is the second and youngest epoch of the ___MASK94___ Period in the Cenozoic Era . The Pliocene follows the Miocene Epoch and is followed by the Pleistocene Epoch . Prior to the 2009 revision of the geologic time scale , which placed the four most recent major glaciations entirely within the Pleistocene , the Pliocene also included the Gelasian stage , which lasted from 2 . 588 to 1 . 806 million years ago , and is now included in the Pleistocene . Thylacoleo (" pouch ___MASK51___ ") is an extinct genus of carnivorous marsupials that lived in Australia from the late Pliocene to the late Pleistocene ( 2 million to 46 thousand years ago ). Some of these " ___MASK56___ lions " were the largest mammalian predators in Australia of that time , with " Thylacoleo carnifex " approaching the weight of a small ___MASK51___ . The estimated average weight for the species ranges from 101 to 130 kg . The Thylacoleonidae are a family of extinct meat - eating marsupials from Australia , referred to as ___MASK56___ lions . The best known is Thylacoleo carnifex , also called the ___MASK56___ lion . The clade ranged from the Late Oligocene to the Pleistocene , with some species the size of a possum and others as large as a leopard . A clade ( from , " klados ", " branch ") is a group of organisms that consists of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants , and represents a single " branch " on the " tree of life ". Indonesia ( or ; Indonesian : ), officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a unitary sovereign state and transcontinental country located mainly in Southeast Asia with some territories in Oceania . Situated between the Indian and Pacific oceans , it is the world ' s largest island country , with more than seventeen thousand islands . At , Indonesia is the world ' s 14th - largest country in terms of land ___MASK2___ and world ' s 7th - largest country in terms of combined sea and land ___MASK2___ . It has an estimated population of over 260 million people and is the world ' s fourth most populous country , the most populous Austronesian nation , as well as the most populous Muslim - majority country . The world ' s most populous island of Java contains more than half of the country ' s population . The Paleogene ( or ; also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene ; informally Lower Tertiary ) is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period million years ago ( ___MASK95___ ) to the beginning of the Neogene Period ___MASK95___ . It is the beginning of the Cenozoic Era of the present Phanerozoic Eon . The Paleogene is most notable for being the time during which mammals diversified from relatively small , simple forms into a large group of diverse animals in the wake of the Cretaceous  Paleogene extinction event that ended the preceding Cretaceous Period . Archaeology , or archeology , is the study of ___MASK4___ activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture . The archaeological record consists of artifacts , architecture , biofacts or ecofacts , and cultural landscapes . Archaeology can be considered both a social science and a branch of the humanities . In North America , archaeology is considered a sub - field of anthropology , while in Europe archaeology is often viewed as either a discipline in its own right or a sub - field of other disciplines . Grasslands are ___MASK97___ where the vegetation is dominated by grasses ( Poaceae ), however sedge ( Cyperaceae ) and rush ( ___MASK65___ ) families can also be found . Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica . Grasslands are found in most ecoregions of the Earth . For example , there are five terrestrial ecoregion classifications ( subdivisions ) of the temperate grasslands , savannas , and shrublands biome ( ecosystem ), which is one of eight terrestrial ecozones of the Earth ' s surface . The ___MASK51___ (" ___MASK93___ leo ") is one of the big cats in the genus " ___MASK93___ " and a member of the family ___MASK28___ . The commonly used term African ___MASK51___ collectively denotes the several subspecies in Africa . With some males exceeding in weight , it is the second - largest living cat after the ___MASK69___ . Wild lions currently exist in sub - Saharan Africa and in India ( where an endangered remnant population resides in Gir Forest National Park ). In ancient historic times , their range was in most of Africa , including North Africa , and across Eurasia from Greece and southeastern Europe to India . In the late Pleistocene , about 10 , 000 years ago , the ___MASK51___ was the most widespread large land mammal after humans : " ___MASK93___ leo spelaea " lived in northern and western Europe and " ___MASK93___ leo atrox " lived in the Americas from the Yukon to Peru . The ___MASK51___ is classified as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature ( IUCN ), having seen a major population decline in its African range of 30  50 % over two decades during the second half of the twentieth century . Lion populations are untenable outside designated reserves and national parks . Although the cause of the decline is not fully understood , habitat loss and conflicts with humans are the greatest causes of concern . Within Africa , the West African ___MASK51___ population is particularly endangered . Tasmania ( abbreviated as Tas and known colloquially as " Tassie ") is an island state of the Commonwealth of Australia . It is located to the south of the Australian mainland , separated by Bass Strait . The state encompasses the main island of Tasmania , the 26th - largest island in the world , and the surrounding 334 islands . The state has a population of around 518 , 500 , just over forty percent of which resides in the Greater Hobart precinct , which forms the metropolitan ___MASK2___ of the state capital and largest city , Hobart . Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia , is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent , the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands . It is the world ' s sixth - largest country by total ___MASK2___ . The neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea , Indonesia and East Timor to the north ; the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north - east ; and New Zealand to the south - east . Australia ' s capital is Canberra , and its largest urban ___MASK2___ is Sydney . The Oligocene is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33 . 9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods , the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the epoch are slightly uncertain . The name Oligocene comes from the Ancient Greek (" oligos ", few ) and (" kainos ", new ), and refers to the sparsity of extant forms of molluscs . The Oligocene is preceded by the Eocene Epoch and is followed by the Miocene Epoch . The Oligocene is the third and final epoch of the Paleogene Period . The Oligocene is often considered an important time of transition , a link between the archaic world of the tropical Eocene and the more modern ecosystems of the Miocene . Major changes during the Oligocene included a global expansion of grasslands , and a regression of tropical broad leaf forests to the equatorial belt . Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia . All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia and the Americas . A distinctive characteristic common to these species is that most of the young are carried in a pouch . Well - known marsupials include kangaroos , wallabies , koalas , possums , ___MASK57___ , wombats , Tasmanian devils , and the recently extinct thylacines . Others include the numbat , the ___MASK7___ , the bettong , the bilby , the quoll , and the quokka . The Miocene is the first geological epoch of the ___MASK94___ Period and extends from about ( Ma ). The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell . Its name comes from the Greek words (',  less ) and (',  new ) and means " less recent " because it has 18 % fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene . The Miocene follows the Oligocene Epoch and is followed by the Pliocene Epoch . New Zealand is an island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean . The country geographically comprises two main landmasses  that of the North Island , or Te Ika - a - Mui , and the South Island , or Te Waipounamu  and numerous smaller islands . New Zealand is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly south of the Pacific island ___MASK97___ of New Caledonia , Fiji , and Tonga . Because of its remoteness , it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans . During its long period of isolation , New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal , fungal and plant life . The country ' s varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks , such as the Southern Alps , owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions . New Zealand ' s capital city is Wellington , while its most populous city is Auckland . Mammals are any vertebrates within the class Mammalia ( from Latin " mamma " " breast "), a clade of endothermic amniotes distinguished from reptiles and birds by the possession of a neocortex ( a region of the brain ), hair , three middle ear bones and mammary glands . The sister group of mammals may be the extinct " Haldanodon ." The mammals represent the only living Synapsida , which together with the ___MASK92___ form the ___MASK74___ clade . The mammals consist of the Yinotheria including monotrema and the Theriiformes including the theria . The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ; pronunciation : ) Age , Era or Period is a prehistoric period of ___MASK4___ history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered ( Grahame Clark ' s Modes I and II ), and covers roughly 95 % of ___MASK4___ technological prehistory . It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools , probably by ___MASK86___ habilis initially , 2 . 6 million years ago , to the end of the Pleistocene around 10 , 000 BP . The Pleistocene ( often colloquially referred to as the Ice Age ) is the geological epoch which lasted from about 2 , 588 , 000 to 11 , 700 years ago , spanning the world ' s most recent period of repeated glaciations . The end of the Pleistocene corresponds with the end of the last glacial period and also with the end of the Paleolithic age used in archaeology . The ___MASK42___ (" diprotos ", meaning " two front " and  " odontos " meaning " teeth ") are a large order of about 125 marsupial mammals including the kangaroos , wallabies , possums , koala , wombats , and many others . Extinct diprotodonts include the rhinoceros - sized " Diprotodon ", and " Thylacoleo ", the so - called " marsupial lion ". Diprotodon , meaning " two forward teeth ", is the largest known ___MASK56___ ever to have lived . Along with many other members of a group of unusual species collectively called the " Australian megafauna ", it existed from approximately 1 . 6 million years ago until extinction some 46 , 000 years ago ( through most of the Pleistocene epoch ).