Australidelphia
Australidelphia is the superorder that contains roughly three-quarters of all marsupials, including all those native to Australasia and a single species 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 Monito del Monte's lineage is the most basal of the superorder.[1][2] 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).[2] The study also showed that the most basal of all marsupial orders are the other two South American lineages (Didelphimorphia and Paucituberculata, with the former probably branching first). This indicates that Australidelphia arose in South America and likely reached Australia in a single dispersal event after Microbiotheria split off.[1][2]
The orders within this group are listed below:
References
- ^ a b Schiewe, Jessie (2010-07-28). "Australia's marsupials originated in what is now South America, study says". LATimes.Com. Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-marsupial-20100728,0,5549873.story. Retrieved 2010-08-01.
- ^ 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 (Public Library of Science) 8 (7): e1000436. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000436. PMC 2910653. PMID 20668664. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=2910653.