Caluromyinae Reig et al., 1987

Voss, RS & Jansa, SA, 2009, Phylogenetic Relationships And Classification Of Didelphid Marsupials, An Extant Radiation Of New World Metatherian Mammals, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2009 (322), pp. 1-177 : 91

Subfamily Caluromyinae Reig et al., 1987

CONTENTS: Caluromys and Caluromysiops .

DIAGNOSIS: Caluromyines can be distinguished from other confamilial taxa by their long fourth manual digit (dIII is the longest manual digit, or dIII and dIV are subequal in all other didelphids); a completely ossified palate (maxillopalatine and sometimes additional palatal fenestrae are consistently present in most other didelphids); lack of a transverse canal foramen (transverse canal foramina are almost invariably present in all other didelphids); an alisphenoid tympanic process that contacts or closely approximates the rostral tympanic process of the petrosal (the alisphenoid tympanic process and the rostral tympanic process of the petrosal are widely separated in other didelphids); an indirectly suspended anterior limb of the ectotympanic (the anterior limb of the ectotympanic is directly suspended from the skull in most other didelphids); a fenestra cochleae that is concealed in a sinus formed by the rostral and caudal tympanic processes of the petrosal (the fenestra cochleae is exposed in most other didelphids); a blunt and weakly inflected angular process (the mandibular angle is acute and strongly inflected in all other didelphids); an upper canine alveolus that is completely contained by the maxilla (C1 occupies the premaxillarymaxillary suture in all other didelphids); a vestigial or absent first upper premolar (P1 is present and nonvestigial in all other didelphids); a tall second upper premolar that much exceeds P 3 in height (P2 is either subequal to or smaller than P 3 in most other didelphids); and lack of an ectoflexus on all of the upper molars (a distinct ectoflexus is present, at least on M3, in all other didelphids).

REMARKS: Caluromyine monophyly is strongly supported by morphological characters (appendix 5) and IRBP gene sequences (fig. 28), and this clade is recovered with strong support in analyses of concatenated genes (fig. 33) and total evidence (nonmolecular + molecular characters; figs. 35, 36) despite the overall incompleteness of our data from Caluromysiops (table 2). Two deletions at the DMP1 locus that currently optimize as synapomorphies of Caluromys (fig. 29) might prove to be caluromyine synapomorphies when this gene is eventually sequenced for Caluromysiops . Although most recent authors (e.g., Reig et al., 1985, 1987; Kirsch and Palma, 1995; McKenna and Bell, 1997; Gardner, 2005, 2008) have included Glironia in the Caluromyinae (or Caluromyidae ), that genus appears to represent an ancient lineage of basal didelphids that may not be closely related to Caluromys + Caluromysiops (see Jansa and Voss, 2000; this report, above). The authorship of familygroup names based on Caluromys is often attributed to Kirsch (1977b), but no such name in that work fulfills the technical criteria for nomenclatural availability ( ICZN, 1999: Article 13). Apparently, the first explicit statement of characters purported to differentiate this taxon from other opossums appeared in Reig et al. (1987: 72).