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An ‘ameridelphian’ marsupial from the early Eocene of Australia supports a complex model of Southern Hemisphere marsupial biogeography

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Abstract

Recent molecular data strongly support the monophyly of all extant Australian and New Guinean marsupials (Eomarsupialia) to the exclusion of extant South American marsupials. This, together with available geological and fossil evidence, has been used to argue that the presence of marsupials in Australia is simply the result of a single dispersal event from South America during the latest Cretaceous or Palaeocene, without subsequent dispersals between the two continents. Here, I describe an isolated ankle bone (calcaneus) of a metatherian from the early Eocene Tingamarra Local Fauna in northeastern Australia. Strikingly, this specimen, QM F30060, lacks the ‘continuous lower ankle joint pattern’ (CLAJP), presence of which is a highly distinctive apomorphy of the marsupial clade Australidelphia, which includes Eomarsupialia, the living South American microbiotherian Dromiciops and the Tingamarran fossil marsupial Djarthia. Comparisons with a range of marsupials and stem-metatherians strongly suggest that the absence of the CLAJP in QM F30060 is plesiomorphic, and that this specimen represents the first unequivocal non-australidelphian (‘ameridelphian’) metatherian known from Australia. This interpretation is confirmed by phylogenetic analyses that place QM F30060 within (crown-group) Marsupialia, but outside Australidelphia. Based on these results, the distribution of marsupials within Gondwana cannot be explained by simply a single dispersal event from South America and Australia. Either there were multiple dispersals by marsupials (and possibly also stem-metatherians) between South America and Australia, in one or both directions, or, alternatively, there was a broadly similar metatherian fauna stretching across southern South America, Antarctica and Australia during the Late Cretaceous–early Palaeogene.

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Abbreviations

AMNH M-:

American Museum of Natural History Mammalogy collection

AR:

University of New South Wales Archer collection

CaCu:

calcaneocuboid

CaCua:

auxiliary calcaneocuboid

CaCud:

distal calcaneocuboid

CaCul:

lateral calcaneocuboid

CaCum:

medial calcaneocuboid

CaCup:

proximal calcaneocuboid

CLAJP:

continuous lower ankle joint pattern

Ec:

ectal

FMNH:

Field Museum of Natural History

LAJ:

lower ankle joint

Ma:

Megannum

mm:

millimetres

MYA:

million years ago

QM F:

Queensland Museum Palaeontology collection

SLAJP:

separate lower ankle joint pattern

Su:

sustentacular

UNSW:

University of New South Wales

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Acknowledgements

Collection and study of the Tingamarra Local Fauna has been led by Henk Godthelp, Mike Archer and Suzanne Hand at UNSW, who kindly allowed study of the fossil specimen described here. Financial support for R. Beck’s research on the Tingamarra Local Fauna has been provided by the Leverhulme Trust (via Study Abroad Studentship SAS/30110), Phil Creaser and the CREATE fund at the University of New South Wales (via a CREATE scholarship), the National Science Foundation (via grant DEB-0743039, in collaboration with Rob Voss at the AMNH) and the Australian Research Council (via Discovery Early Career Researcher Award DE120100957). Other critical support for research on the Tingamarra Local Fauna has been given by the Australian Research Council (ARC DP0453262 to M. Archer, and ARC LP045366 and LP0989969 to S. Hand) and the University of New South Wales. Christine Argot gave insightful comments on QM F30060, and Lawrence Lawver and Francisco Goin kindly supplied a number of important references. Rob Voss provided some key observations on Mimoperadectes houdei. Mike Archer, Henk Godthelp and Sue Hand provided useful comments and feedback that helped greatly improve this research. I thank the associate editor Rob Asher and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive reviews.

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  1. School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia

    Robin M. D. Beck

  2. Department of Mammalogy, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY, 10024-5192, USA

    Robin M. D. Beck

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Communicated by: Robert J. Asher

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Beck, R.M.D. An ‘ameridelphian’ marsupial from the early Eocene of Australia supports a complex model of Southern Hemisphere marsupial biogeography. Naturwissenschaften 99, 715–729 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-012-0953-x

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