Didelphini Gray, 1821

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 : 113

Tribe Didelphini Gray, 1821

CONTENTS: Chironectes , Didelphis , Lutreolina , Philander , and † Thylophorops .

DIAGNOSIS: Members of the tribe Didelphini differ from all other members of the subfamily Didelphinae by their possession of a well-developed pouch, black-and-white marked tail, nasal tips that do not extend above I1, co-ossified frontals, well-developed sagittal crest, ectotympanic suspension via the malleus only, delayed eruption of M4, and lower incisors without a distinct lingual cusp.

REMARKS: The monophyly of Didelphini is strongly supported by most phylogenetic analyses published to date (e.g., Kirsch and Palma, 1995; Kirsch et al., 1997; Jansa and Voss, 2000, 2005; Voss and Jansa, 2003, this report; Steiner et al., 2005; Jansa et al., 2006; Gruber et al., 2007). The only exceptions appear to be primitive parsimony (‘‘Wagner’’) trees, unaccompanied by support statistics, that were based largely on dental characters (e.g., Reig et al., 1987: figs. 64–67). All of the diagnostic morphological features listed above, together with several other craniodental and karyotypic traits, optimize as unambiguous tribal synapomorphies (appendix 5). The monophyly of Didelphini is additionally supported by a uniquely shared deletion at the DMP1 locus (fig. 29), and by two uniquely shared deletions at the BRCA1 locus (fig. 31).