Macropodidae, Gray, 1821

Beck, Robin M. D., Voss, Robert S. & Jansa, Sharon A., 2022, Craniodental Morphology And Phylogeny Of Marsupials, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2022 (457), pp. 1-353 : 252

Macropodidae + Potoroidae

CONTENTS: Macropodidae and Potoroidae .

STEM AGE: 27.7 Mya (95% HPD: 23.6–32.1 Mya).

CROWN AGE: 19.3 Mya (95% HPD: 18.0–22.0 Mya).

UNAMBIGUOUS CRANIODENTAL SYNAPOMORPHIES: Presphenoid exposed in roof of nasopharyngeal fossa above posterior palate (char. 43: 1→0; ci = 0.091); anterior limb of ectotympanic loosely attached to the petrosal or squamosal behind postglenoid process (char. 59: 2→1; ci = 0.214); P2 and dP3 simultaneously replaced by P3 (char. 117: 1→2; ci = 0.667); distinct posterolingual cusp on semi- or fully sectorial P3 present (char. 125: 0→1; ci = 0.200); and major crest of semisectorial or fully sectorial P3 parallel to molar row (char. 127: 0→1; ci = 0.400).

COMMENTS: We follow Kear and Cooke (2001; see also Groves, 2005a; Van Dyck and Strahan, 2008; Jackson and Groves, 2015; Eldridge et al., 2019) in recognizing Macropodidae and Potoridae as separate familes (see below). By contrast, Prideaux and collaborators (e.g., Prideaux and Warburton, 2010; Prideaux and Tedford, 2012; McDowell et al., 2015) have recognized these as subfamilies within a more broadly defined Macropodidae .

Monophyly of Macropodidae + Potoroidae to the exclusion of Hypsiprymnodontidae has been a feature of all recent molecular, morphological, and total-evidence analyses of macropodiform phylogeny ( Kear et al., 2007; Kear and Pledge, 2008; Meredith et al., 2009a, 2009b, 2009 c, 2011; Black et al., 2014c; Llamas et al., 2015; Mitchell et al., 2014; Travouillon et al., 2014b, 2015 a, 2016, 2022; Cooke et al., 2015; May-Collado et al., 2015; Butler et al., 2016, 2018; Duchêne et al., 2018; Cascini et al., 2019; Celik et al., 2019; Álvarez-Carretero et al., 2021), although this clade is currently unnamed. This clade is likewise strongly supported in our molecular analyses (figs. 27–29), but as already discussed (see Macropodiformes above), the relationships of some fossil macropodiforms differ markedly between our undated (fig. 32) and dated ( fig. 33) total-evidence analyses, as they also do among several recent studies ( Kear et al., 2007; Kear and Pledge, 2008; Black et al., 2014c; Llamas et al., 2015: supplementary material; Travouillon et al., 2014b, 2015 a, 2016, 2022; Butler et al., 2016, 2018).

Putative macropodids and at least one putative potoroid have been reported from late Oligocene (Faunal Zone A) sites at Riversleigh World Heritage Area ( Travouillon et al., 2014 b, 2016; Butler et al., 2016; Butler et al., 2017). The former include “bulungamayines” (species of † Bulungamaya , † Cookeroo , † Ganguroo , and † Wabularoo ), at least some of which are probably not crown macropodids ( Kear et al., 2001a; 2001 b, 2007; Kear and Cooke, 2001; Kear, 2002; Kear and Pledge, 2008; Prideaux and Warburton, 2010; Prideaux and Tedford, 2012; Black et al., 2014c; Phillips, 2015; Travouillon et al., 2014b, 2015 a, 2016, 2022; Butler et al., 2016, 2018; Cascini et al., 2019; see Macropodidae below). The putative Riversleigh potoroid, meanwhile, is † Gumardee , although studies differ as to whether this taxon is indeed a potoroid or a macropodid ( Flannery et al., 1983; Butler et al., 2016, 2018; Travouillon et al., 2016, 2022; see Potoroidae below). Flannery and Rich (1986) additionally referred isolated dental specimens from the late Oligocene Namba Formation to † Gumardee and “ Potoroinae [= Potoroidae here] indet.” Collectively, these records suggest that Macropodidae and Potoroidae had diverged from each other by the late Oligocene. However, these fossil taxa have not been included in our analyses, the results of which instead suggest that the macropodid-potoroid split was in the early Miocene.