South American Living Metatherians: Physiological Ecology and Constraints

Goin, Francisco J.; Woodburne, Michael O.; Zimicz, Ana Natalia; Martín, Gabriel M.; Chornogubsky, Laura

doi:10.1007/978-94-017-7420-8_2

Cited by 5 publications

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“…wentworthi , varies among species of dasyurids (Archer, 1976; Saether, 1983, 1986; Wroe, 1999); these differences are often correlated with brachycephalization-shortening of the face that brings the canines closer to the region of maximum bite-force and increases torsion resistance (Covey & Greaves, 1994). Reduction of p3 has also occurred independently in several non-dasyurid marsupial lineages, including some didelphids (Goin, 1993), and in a single sparassodontan, Australogale leptognathus (Engelman et al, 2020; Marshall, 1977). Although reduction of p3 occurs in other faunivorous marsupial lineages, in some respects the structure of this region of the premolar row in Malleodectes ?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new diminutive durophagous Miocene dasyuromorphian (Marsupialia, Malleodectidae) from the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, northern Australia

Churchill

Archer

Hand

et al. 2022

Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology

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Malleodectes? wentworthi, sp. nov. is a highly specialized durophagous marsupial from a Middle Miocene limestone cave deposit in the Riversleigh World Heritage area, northern Australia. It provides the first information regarding the lower dentition of malleodectids, an extinct family of dasyuromorphians. It is also the smallest durophagous member of Metatheria (marsupials and their stem relatives) known to date, with an estimated body mass of ∼70-90 g, an order of magnitude smaller than other known malleodectids (Malleodectes mirabilis and Ma. moenia ∼1 kg). As in other malleodectids, Ma.? wentworthi has a hypertrophied, dome-like premolar specialized for crushing hard foods. Tentative assignment to the genus Malleodectes is based on derived similarities of the premolar and molar dentition to those of larger species of Malleodectes (known only from upper dentitions), and occlusal compatibility. Quantitative morphofunctional analyses of dental indices and mandibular bending strength are congruent with the previously proposed hypothesis that malleodectids may have been uniquely specialized snail-eaters. Maximum parsimony phylogenetic analysis of a 173 morphological character dataset, with a molecular scaffold enforced, placed Ma.? wentworthi within Dasyuromorphia, in a basal polytomy with Dasyuridae and Mutpuracinus archibaldi, to the exclusion of Barinya wangala, Myrmecobiidae and Thylacinidae. Bayesian analysis of a total evidence dataset that combined morphological with nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequence data places Ma.? wentworthi as a sister taxon to crown-clade Dasyuridae, although support for this relationship is weak. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:9302B839-4F3B-46E9-9F37-A992BC93FC1D SUPPLEMENTAL DATA-Supplemental materials are available for this article for free at www.tandfonline.com/UJVP.

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