Biology:Dasyuromorphia

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Short description: Taxon of carnivorous marsupials

Dasyuromorphia
Temporal range: Late Oligocene–Present
Dasyuromorphia portraits.jpg
Clockwise from top left: thylacine, Tasmanian devil, numbat, fat-tailed dunnart, yellow-footed antechinus and tiger quoll
Scientific classification e
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Infraclass: Marsupialia
Clade: Agreodontia
Order: Dasyuromorphia
Gill, 1872
Families

Dasyuromorphia (/dæsijʊərˈmɔːrfiə/, meaning "hairy tail"[2] in Greek) is an order comprising most of the Australian carnivorous marsupials, including quolls, dunnarts, the numbat, the Tasmanian devil, and the extinct thylacine. In Australia, the exceptions include the omnivorous bandicoots (order Peramelemorphia) and the marsupial moles (which eat meat but are very different and are now accorded an order of their own, Notoryctemorphia). Numerous South American species of marsupials (orders Didelphimorphia, Paucituberculata, and Microbiotheria) are also carnivorous, as were some extinct members of the order Diprotodontia, including extinct kangaroos (such as Ekaltadeta and Propleopus) and thylacoleonids, and some members of the partially extinct clade Metatheria and all members of the extinct superorder Sparassodonta.

The order contains four families: one with just a single living species (the numbat), two with only extinct species (including the thylacine and Malleodectes), and one, the Dasyuridae, with 73 extant species.

Characteristics

Unlike herbivores, which tend to become highly specialized for particular ecological niches and diversify greatly in form, carnivores tend to be broadly similar to one another, certainly on the level of gross external form. Just as Northern Hemisphere carnivores like cats, mongooses, foxes and weasels are much more alike in structure than, for example, camels, goats, pigs and giraffes, so too are the marsupial predators constrained to retain general-purpose, look-alike forms—forms which mirror those of placental carnivores. The names given to them by early European settlers reflect this: the thylacine was called the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolves, quolls were called native cats or native foxes, and so on.

The primary specialisation among marsupial predators is that of size: prior to the massive environmental changes that came about with the arrival of humans about 50,000 years ago, there were several very large carnivores, none of them members of the Dasyuromorphia and all of them now extinct. Those that survived into historical times ranged from the wolf-sized thylacine to the tiny long-tailed planigale which at 4 to 6 grams is less than half the size of a mouse. Most, however, tend towards the lower end of the size scale, typically between about 15 or 20 grams and about 2 kilograms, or from the size of a domestic mouse to that of a small domestic cat.

Phylogeny

Upham et al. 2019[3][4] Álvarez-Carretero et al. 2022[5][6]
Myrmecobiidae

Myrmecobius (Numbats)

Dasyuridae
Sminthopsinae

Planigale (planigales)

Ningaui (ningauis)

Sminthopsis [Antechinomys] (dunnarts, kultarrs)

Dasyurinae
Phascogalini

Phascogale (phascogales)

Murexia

Antechinus (antechinuses)

Dasyurini

Pseudantechinus (False antechinus)

Dasyuroides (kowari)

Dasykaluta (little red kaluta)

Dasycercus (mulgara)

Parantechinus (dibblers)

Pseudantechinus ningbing

Myoictis (Three-striped dasyure)

Neophascogale (speckled dasyure)

Phascolosorex (marsupial shrews)

Dasyurus [Sarcophilus] (quolls)

(20 genera, 72 species)
Myrmecobiidae

Myrmecobius

Dasyuridae
Sminthopsinae

Planigale

Sminthopsis species-group 1

Sminthopsis species-group 2

Sminthopsis species-group 3 [Antechinomys]

Ningaui

Dasyurinae
Phascogalini

Antechinus

Phascogale

Murexia

Dasyurini

Neophascogale

Phascolosorex

Dasyurus [Sarcophilus]

Pseudantechinus

Dasycercus

Dasyuroides

Dasykaluta

Parantechinus

Myoictis

See also

References

  1. Archer, M.; Hand, S. J.; Black, K. H.; Beck, R. M. D.; Arena, D. A.; Wilson, L. A. B.; Kealy, S.; Hung, T.-t. (2016-05-27). "A new family of bizarre durophagous carnivorous marsupials from Miocene deposits in the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, northwestern Queensland" (in en). Scientific Reports 6: 26911. doi:10.1038/srep26911. ISSN 2045-2322. PMID 27229325. Bibcode2016NatSR...626911A. 
  2. Mammalian Lexicon
  3. Upham, Nathan S.; Esselstyn, Jacob A.; Jetz, Walter (2019). "Inferring the mammal tree: Species-level sets of phylogenies for questions in ecology, evolution and conservation". PLOS Biol 17 (12): e3000494. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3000494. PMID 31800571. 
  4. Upham, Nathan S.; Esselstyn, Jacob A.; Jetz, Walter (2019). "DR_on4phylosCompared_linear_richCol_justScale_ownColors_withTips_80in". PLOS Biology 17 (12). doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3000494. https://github.com/n8upham/MamPhy_v1/blob/master/Fig6_compare_tipDRs/DR_on4phylosCompared_linear_richCol_justScale_ownColors_withTips_80in.pdf. 
  5. Álvarez-Carretero, Sandra; Tamuri, Asif U.; Battini, Matteo; Nascimento, Fabrícia F.; Carlisle, Emily; Asher, Robert J.; Yang, Ziheng; Donoghue, Philip C.J. et al. (2022). "A species-level timeline of mammal evolution integrating phylogenomic data". Nature 602 (7896): 263–267. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-04341-1. 
  6. Álvarez-Carretero, Sandra; Tamuri, Asif U.; Battini, Matteo; Nascimento, Fabrícia F.; Carlisle, Emily; Asher, Robert J.; Yang, Ziheng; Donoghue, Philip C.J. et al. (2022). "4705sp_colours_mammal-time.tree". Nature (602): 263–267. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-04341-1. https://figshare.com/articles/dataset/Data_for_A_Species-Level_Timeline_of_Mammal_Evolution_Integrating_Phylogenomic_Data_/14885691. 

External links

Wikidata ☰ Q213333 entry