2015/11/10 by Michael Westerman, Carey Krajewski, Benjamin P. Kear +4 · 1 voice · 70 citations
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Bat Biology and Ecology Studies #Biology #Clade #Cladogenesis #Evolution and Paleontology Studies #Evolutionary biology #Gene #Genetics #Marsupial #Molecular clock #Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology #Phylogenetic tree #Sister group #Zoology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/zoj.12323
published in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 176(3), 686-701 (Oxford University Press)
openalex publication_date 2015/11/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/17
We reassessed the phylogenetic relationships of dasyuromorphians using a large molecular database comprising previously published and new sequences for both nuclear (nDNA) and mitochondrial (mtDNA) genes from the numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus), most living species of Dasyuridae, and the recently extinct marsupial wolf, Thylacinus cynocephalus. Our molecular tree suggests that Thylacinidae is sister to Myrmecobiidae + Dasyuridae. We show robust support for the dasyurid intrafamilial classification proposed by Krajewski & Westerman as well as for placement of most dasyurid genera, which suggests substantial homoplasy amongst craniodental characters presently used to generate morphology-based taxonomies. Molecular dating with relaxed molecular clocks suggests that dasyuromorphian cladogenesis began in the Eocene, and that all three dasyuromorphian families originated prior to the end of this epoch. Radiation within Thylacinidae and Dasyuridae had occurred by the middle to late Oligocene, consistent with recognition of primitive thylacinids (e.g. Badjcinus turnbulli) in the later Oligocene and of putative dasyurids (e.g. Barinya wangala) by the early Miocene. We propose that all four extant dasyurid tribes were in existence by the early Miocene and that most modern dasyurid genera/species were established before the later Miocene. This is in marked contrast to the popularly accepted advocation of their origins in the latest Miocene-early Pliocene.