Australidelphia

Australidelphia
Temporal range: 61.6–0 Ma Early Paleocene to present[1]
A swamp wallaby
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Infraclass: Marsupialia
Superorder: Australidelphia
Szalay 1982
Orders

Australidelphia is the superorder that contains roughly three-quarters of all marsupials, including all those native to Australasia and a single species – the monito del monte – from South America. All other American marsupials are members of the Ameridelphia. Analysis of retrotransposon insertion sites in the nuclear DNA of a variety of marsupials has shown that the South American monito del monte's lineage is the most basal of the superorder.[3][4]

The Australian australidelphians form a clade, for which the name Euaustralidelphia ("true Australidelphia") has been proposed (the branching order within this group is yet to be determined).[4] The study also showed that the most basal of all marsupial orders are the other two South American groups (Didelphimorphia and Paucituberculata, with the former probably branching first). This indicates that Australidelphia arose in South America along with the other major divisions of extant marsupials, and likely reached Australia via Antarctica in a single dispersal event after Microbiotheria split off.[3][4]

  1. ^ "PBDB". paleobiodb.org. Retrieved 2021-07-13.
  2. ^ a b Beck, R. M. D.; Travouillon, K. J.; Aplin, K. P.; Godthelp, H.; Archer, M. (2014). "The Osteology and Systematics of the Enigmatic Australian Oligo-Miocene Metatherian Yalkaparidon (Yalkaparidontidae; Yalkaparidontia; ?Australidelphia; Marsupialia)" (PDF). Journal of Mammalian Evolution. 21 (2): 127–172. doi:10.1007/s10914-013-9236-3. S2CID 18490996.
  3. ^ a b Schiewe, Jessie (2010-07-28). "Australia's marsupials originated in what is now South America, study says". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 1 August 2010. Retrieved 2010-08-01.
  4. ^ a b c Nilsson, M. A.; Churakov, G.; Sommer, M.; Van Tran, N.; Zemann, A.; Brosius, J.; Schmitz, J. (2010-07-27). Penny, David (ed.). "Tracking Marsupial Evolution Using Archaic Genomic Retroposon Insertions". PLOS Biology. 8 (7): e1000436. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000436. PMC 2910653. PMID 20668664.