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Peramelemorphia

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Peramelemorphia
Temporal range: Oligocene – Recent
a short-nosed bandicoot
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Mammalia
Infraclass:
Marsupialia
Order:
Peramelemorphia

Kirsch, 1968
Families

Chaeropodidae Gill, 1872
Peramelidae Gray, 1825
Thylacomyidae Bensley, 1903
Yaralidae Muirhead & Filan, 1995 (†)

The order Peramelemorphia includes the bandicoots and bilbies. They are native to New Guinea and Australia. They are small marsupial omnivores. This order of mammals consists of some lesser known marsupials. Most of these animals have a typical bandicoot shape: a round, curved back body, a long thin nose, very big upright ears, long thin legs, and a thin tail. They can weigh from about 140 g (4.9 oz) to 4 kg (8.8 lb),[1] but most of them weigh around 1 kg (2.2 lb).

Phylogeny - their evolutionary history

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Relationships within Marsupialia

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The place of Peramelemorphia (bandicoots and their relatives) in the marsupial family tree has been confusing and debated for a long time. Two body parts—their feet and teeth—give different clues about their evolution.[2]

All animals in this group have many lower front teeth (three pairs), which is a trait seen in Dasyuromorphia, the group of marsupial meat-eaters. But their feet are special because the second and third toes are joined together. This feature, called syndactyly, is common in Diprotodontia, the group of plant-eating marsupials like kangaroos, wombats, and possums.[3]

Scientists have different ideas to explain this puzzle:

  1. Bandicoots may have come from meat-eating marsupials, keeping their many teeth, and developed the joined toes on their own.
  2. Because joined toes are rare, bandicoots might have come from plant-eating marsupials with joined toes and then grew extra teeth again.
  3. Bandicoots might have come from an early meat-eater, developed joined toes to help them climb, and then plant-eating marsupials split off and changed their teeth.

Recent studies of their genes have not solved this mystery yet but show that bandicoots are only distantly related to other marsupial groups.[4]

Relationships within Peramelemorphia

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Recent studies of their genes have helped scientists understand how the animals in Peramelemorphia (bandicoots and relatives) are related. The oldest split in the group separates the family Thylacomyidae (which includes Macrotis) from all other bandicoots. Next, the now extinct family Chaeropodidae (Chaeropus) separated from the rest. The remaining bandicoots belong to the family Peramelidae. This family is divided into two groups:

Meredith 2008[4] Upham et al. 2019[5][6] Álvarez-Carretero et al. 2022[7][8]
Peramelemorphia

Fossil record

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Many fossils of modern bandicoots like Perameles and Isoodon have been found from the Pleistocene and Holocene times.[9] But only a few fossil species have been discovered so far.

The first fossil bandicoot was described in 1955 by R. A. Stirton. It was a part of a lower jaw found in the Tirari Desert in Central Australia from the Pliocene period. This jaw looked like it belonged to bilbies and was named Ischnodon australis.[10]

In 1976, Archer and Wade found the next fossil bandicoot. It was a single upper tooth from the Bluff Downs fossil site, Allingham Formation, in northern Queensland, also from the Pliocene. The tooth was like those of Perameles and was named Perameles allinghamensis.[11]

In 1995, Dr. Jeannette Muirhead described the first Miocene bandicoot species from Riversleigh. It was called Yarala burchfieldi and was smaller than living bandicoots with simple teeth.[12] In 2000, a skull was found, the first for any fossil bandicoot. This skull showed Yarala was different from other bandicoots, so a new family called Yaralidae was made for it.[13]

In 1997, a new species called Perameles bowensis was described from teeth found in two Pliocene sites, Bow and Wellington Caves.[14] Later, in 2000, the same species was found in Chinchilla, Queensland.[15] In 2002, another new species, Perameles sobbei, was found on the Darling Downs in south-eastern Queensland from the Pleistocene.[16] It was known from a lower jaw and some teeth. More teeth were found in 2005.[17]

In 2006, a second species of Yarala, called Yarala kida, was described from a late Oligocene site in the Northern Territory. This species was even more primitive than Yarala burchfieldi.[18]

The second fossil skull of a bandicoot was found in Miocene sites at Riversleigh. Several skulls and jaws of a new species were found and named Galadi speciosus. It had a short nose and was probably more meat-eating than modern bandicoots. Its exact relation to other bandicoots is unclear. Later, three more species of Galadi were described in 2013.[19] An additional three species of Galadi were later described in 2013 and named Galadi grandis, Galadi amplus and Galadi adversus.[20]

In 2013, a new mouse-sized bandicoot species called Bulungu palara' was described from Riversleigh and southern Australia.[21] Two other Bulungu species were found in South Australia, including Bulungu muirheadae, the oldest fossil bandicoot known (about 24 million years old) and Bulungu campbelli.[22]

In 2014, the oldest modern bandicoot and bilby fossils were found in Riversleigh from the middle Miocene (about 15 million years ago). The bandicoot was named Crash bandicoot, after the famous video game character and is known from one upper jaw. The bilby, named Liyamayi dayi, is known from three teeth.[23]

The first evidence of size differences between male and female fossil bandicoots was found in two new species from Riversleigh called Madju variae and Madju encorensis. These species are related to modern bandicoots but belong to a different group called Perameloid. Madju variae also showed growth stages from young to adult, which is rare in fossil marsupials. Researchers think Madju variae grew slower than modern bandicoots, more like bilbies. This suggests that fast growth in modern bandicoots evolved after the middle Miocene when Australia became drier.[24]

References

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  1. ↑ Aplin, K.P., Helgen, K.M., Lunde, D.P., 2010. A review of Peroryctes broadbenti, the giant bandicoot of Papua New Guinea. American Museum Novitates 3696, 1-41.
  2. ↑ Gordon, G., Hulbert, A.J., 1989. Peramelidae, In: Walton, D.W. (Ed.), Fauna of Australia. . Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, pp. 603–624.
  3. ↑ Strahan, R. 1995. Mammals of Australia. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
  4. 1 2 Meredith, Robert W.; Westerman, Michael; Springer, Mark S. (2008). "A timescale and phylogeny for "Bandicoots" (Peramelemorphia: Marsupialia) based on the sequences for five nuclear genes". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 47 (1): 1–20. Bibcode:2008MolPE..47....1M. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2008.01.002. PMID 18328736.
  5. ↑ 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 Biology. 17 (12) e3000494. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3000494. PMC 6892540. PMID 31800571.
  6. ↑ Upham, Nathan S.; Esselstyn, Jacob A.; Jetz, Walter (2019). "DR_on4phylosCompared_linear_richCol_justScale_ownColors_withTips_80in" (PDF). PLOS Biology. 17 (12) e3000494. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3000494. PMC 6892540. PMID 31800571.
  7. ↑ Álvarez-Carretero, Sandra; Tamuri, Asif U.; Battini, Matteo; Nascimento, Fabrícia F.; Carlisle, Emily; Asher, Robert J.; Yang, Ziheng; Donoghue, Philip C.J.; dos Reis, Mario (2022). "A species-level timeline of mammal evolution integrating phylogenomic data". Nature. 602 (7896): 263–267. Bibcode:2022Natur.602..263A. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-04341-1. hdl:1983/de841853-d57b-40d9-876f-9bfcf7253f12. PMID 34937052.
  8. ↑ Álvarez-Carretero, Sandra; Tamuri, Asif U.; Battini, Matteo; Nascimento, Fabrícia F.; Carlisle, Emily; Asher, Robert J.; Yang, Ziheng; Donoghue, Philip C.J.; dos Reis, Mario (2022). "4705sp_colours_mammal-time.tree". Nature. 602 (7896): 263–267. Bibcode:2022Natur.602..263A. doi:10.1038/s41586-021-04341-1. hdl:1983/de841853-d57b-40d9-876f-9bfcf7253f12. PMID 34937052.
  9. ↑ Rich, T. H, Archer, M., Hand, S. J., Godthelp, H., Muirhead, J., Pledge, N. S., Flannery, T. F., Woodburne, M. O., Case, J. A., Teford, R. H., Turnbull, W. D., Lundelius, E. L.jr., Rich, L. S. V., Whitelaw, M. J., Kemp, A., & Rich, P. V. 1991. Australian Mesozoic and Tertiary terrestrial mammal localities, Appendix 1. Pp. 1005-1058 in P. Vickers-Rich, Monaghan J. M., R. F. Baird & T. H. Rich (eds), Vertebrate Palaeontology of Australia. Pioneer Design Studio and Monash University Publications Committee, Melbourne.
  10. ↑ Stirton, R. A. 1955. Late Tertiary marsupials from South Australia. Records of the South Australian Museum, 11, 247– 267.
  11. ↑ Archer, M. & Wade, M. 1976. Results of the Ray E. Lemley expeditions, part 1: The Allingham Formation and a new Pliocene vertebrate fauna from northern Queensland. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, 17, 54–58.
  12. ↑ Muirhead, J. & Filan, S. L. 1995. Yarala burchfieldi, a plesiomorphic bandicoot (Marsupialia, Peramelemorphia) from Oligo-Miocene deposits of Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland. Journal of Paleontology, 69(1), 127-134.
  13. ↑ Muirhead, J. 2000. Yaraloidea (Marsupialia, Peramelemorphia), a new superfamily of marsupial and a description and analysis of the cranium of the Miocene Yarala burchfieldi. Journal of Paleontology, 74(3), 512-523.
  14. ↑ Muirhead, J., Dawson, L. & Archer, M. 1997. Perameles bowensis, a new species of Perameles (Peramelomorphia, Marsupialia) from Pliocene faunas of Bow and Wellington caves, New South Wales. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, 17, 163–174.
  15. ↑ Mackness, B. S., Wroe, S., Muirhead, J., Wilkinson, C. & Wilkinson, D. 2000. First fossil bandicoot from the Pliocene Chinchilla Local Fauna. Australian Mammalogy, 22, 133– 136.
  16. ↑ Price, G. J. 2002. Perameles sobbei, sp. nov. (Marsupialia, Peramelidae), a Pleistocene bandicoot from the Darling Downs, south-eastern Queensland. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum, 48, 193-197.
  17. ↑ Price, G. J. 2005. Fossil bandicoots (Marsupialia, Peramelidae) and environmental change during the Pleistocene on the Darling Downs, southeastern Queensland, Australia. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 4, 347-356.
  18. ↑ Schwarz, L. R. S. 2006. A new species of bandicoot from the Oligocene of northern Australia and implications of bandicoots for correlating Australian Tertiary mammal faunas. Palaeontology, 49, 991–998.
  19. ↑ K.J. Travouillon; Y. Gurovich; R.M.D. Beck; J. Muirhead (2010). "An exceptionally well-preserved short-snouted bandicoot (Marsupialia; Peramelemorphia) from Riversleigh's Oligo-Miocene deposits, northwestern Queensland, Australia". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 30 (5): 1528–1546. doi:10.1080/02724634.2010.501463
  20. ↑ K. J. Travouillon, Y. Gurovich, M. Archer, S. J. Hand and J. Muirhead (2013). "The genus Galadi: three new bandicoots (Marsupialia, Peramelemorphia) from Riversleigh's Miocene deposits, northwestern Queensland, Australia". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 33 (1): 153–168. doi:10.1080/02724634.2012.713416
  21. ↑ Gurovich, Y., Travouillon, K.J., Beck, R.M.D., Muirhead, J., Archer, M., 2013. Biogeographical implications of a new mouse-sized fossil bandicoot (Marsupialia: Peramelemorphia) occupying a dasyurid-like ecological niche across Australia. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.
  22. ↑ Travouillon, K.J., Beck, R.M.D., Hand, S.J., Archer, M. (2013). "The oldest fossil record of bandicoots (Marsupialia; Peramelemorphia) from the late Oligocene of Australia". Palaeontologia Electronica. 16 (2): 13A 52p.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  23. ↑ Travouillon, K.J., Hand, S. J., Archer, M., and Black, K. H., 2014. Earliest modern bandicoot and bilby (Marsupialia, Peramelidae and Thylacomyidae) from the Miocene of the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, northwestern Queensland, Australia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 34:375-382.
  24. ↑ Travouillon, K. J., Archer, M., Hand, S. J. and Muirhead, J., 2014. Sexually dimorphic bandicoots (Marsupialia: Peramelemorphia) from the Oligo-Miocene of Australia, first cranial ontogeny for fossil bandicoots and new species descriptions. Journal of Mammalian Evolution. doi:10.1007/s10914-014-9271-8
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