Thylacinidae
Temporal range: Late Oligocene - Holocene
Thylacine
Non-Thylacinus thylacinids, including Nimbacinus (top right)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Infraclass: Marsupialia
Order: Dasyuromorphia
Family: †Thylacinidae
C.L. Bonaparte, 1838
Genera

All extinct, see text

Thylacinidae is an extinct family of carnivorous marsupials from the order Dasyuromorphia. The only species to survive into modern times was the thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus), which became extinct in 1936.

The consensus of authors prior to 1982 was that the thylacinid family were related to the Borhyaenidae, a group of South American predators, also extinct, that exhibited many similar characteristics of dentition. A review published in 1982 compared the skeletal structure of these groups, concluding the tarsal bones show greater affinity with the dasyurmorphs, strongly supporting the later theory that any dental similarities emerged independently via convergent evolution.[1] Thylacinidae is currently considered to be the most basal and earliest diverging member of Dasyuromorpha, estimated to have split from other dasyuromorphs around 42-36 million years ago.[2]

The earliest thylacinid, Badjcinus from the Late Oligocene around 25 million years ago, is estimated to have been around 1.7 to 3.1 kilograms (3.7 to 6.8 lb) in weight, comparable to a living tiger quoll. Early thylacinids were unspecialised faunivores. The family exhibited its greatest diversity during the Miocene epoch, when there were several separate lineages of contemporaneous thylacinids, most of which were considerably smaller than the living thylacine. The genus Thylacinus emerged during the Early Miocene around 16 million years ago, and after the beginning of the Pliocene was the only living thylacinid genus. Over time members of the genus Thylacinus showed an increase in body and increased adaptation to hypercarnivory.[2]

Genera

Family Thylacinidae, extinct

Cladogram after Rovinsky et al. (2019):[2]

Thylacinidae

Badjcinus turnbulli

Nimbacinus dicksoni

Muribacinus gadiyuli

Ngamalacinus timmulvaneyi

Tyarrpecinus rothi

Wabulacinus ridei

Thylacinus

Thylacinus macknessi

Thylacinus potens

Thylacinus megiriani

Thylacinus yorkellus

Thylacinus cynocephalus

References

  1. ↑ Long, J.A.; Archer, M. (2002). Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea: One Hundred Million Years of Evolution. UNSW Press. p. 60. ISBN 9780868404356.
  2. 1 2 3 Rovinsky, Douglass S.; Evans, Alistair R.; Adams, Justin W. (2019-09-02). "The pre-Pleistocene fossil thylacinids (Dasyuromorphia: Thylacinidae) and the evolutionary context of the modern thylacine". PeerJ. 7: e7457. doi:10.7717/peerj.7457. ISSN 2167-8359. PMC 6727838.
  3. ↑ Muirhead, Jeanette; Wroe, Stephen (September 1998). "A New Genus and Species, Badjcinus turnbulli (Thylacinidae: Marsupialia), from the Late-Oligocene of Riversleigh, Northern Australia, and an Investigation of Thylacinid Phylogeny". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 18 (3): 612–626. Bibcode:1998JVPal..18..612M. doi:10.1080/02724634.1998.10011088.
  4. ↑ Wroe, S. (2001). "Maximucinus muirheadae, gen. et sp. nov. (Thylacinidae: Marsupialia), from the Miocene of Riversleigh, north-western Queensland, with estimates of body weights for fossil thylacinids". Australian Journal of Zoology. 49 (6): 603. doi:10.1071/ZO01044. S2CID 32417772.
  5. ↑ Wroe, Stephen (1995). "Muribacinus gadiyuli (Thylacinidae: Marsupialia), a very plesiomorphic thylacinid from the Miocene of Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland, and the problem of paraphyly for the Dasyuridae (Marsupialia)". Journal of Paleontology. 70 (6): 1032–1044. doi:10.1017/S0022336000038737. S2CID 131861751.
  6. 1 2 Murray, P.; Megirian, D. (2000). "Two New Genera and Three New Species of Thylacinidae (Marsupialia) from the Miocene of the Northern Territory, Australia". The Beagle: Occasional Papers of the Northern Territory Museum of Arts and Sciences. 16: 145–162.
  7. 1 2 Muirhead, J. (1997). "Two new early Miocene thylacines from Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland". Memoirs of the Queensland Museum. 41: 367–377.
  8. ↑ Muirhead, J.; Archer, M. (1990). "Nimbacinus dicksoni, a plesiomorphic thylacine (Marsupialia: Thylacinidae) from Tertiary deposits of Queensland and the Northern Territory". Memoirs of the Queensland Museum. 28: 203–221.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.