Thylamyini Hershkovitz, 1992

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 : 124

Tribe Thylamyini Hershkovitz, 1992

CONTENTS: Chacodelphys , Cryptonanus , Gracilinanus , Lestodelphys , Marmosops , and Thylamys .

DIAGNOSIS: Members of the tribe Thylamyini differ from all other didelphids by having a fenestra in the parietal-squamosal suture through which the petrosal is visible on the lateral surface of the braincase. Additionally, most thylamyines ( Chacodelphys and Cryptonanus are exceptions) differ from otherwise similar marmosines by having a secondary foramen ovale formed by an anteromedial bullar process that spans the transverse canal foramen.

REMARKS: The monophyly of Thylamyini (without Chacodelphys , from which sequence data are unavailable) is strongly supported by parsimony, likelihood, and Bayesian analyses of IRBP (fig. 28) and BRCA1 (fig. 31); by likelihood and Bayesian analyses of DMP1 (fig. 29); and by Bayesian analysis of RAG1 (fig. 30). It is also strongly supported by all analyses of a concatenated five-gene dataset (fig. 33), and by Bayesian analysis of a combined (nonmolecular + molecular) dataset that includes Chacodelphys . The presence of a fenestra in the parietal-squamosal suture (appendix 5) and a uniquely derived insertion at the BRCA1 locus (fig. 31) both optimize as thylamyine synapomorphies.

Apparently, the earliest family-group name based on Thylamys is technically available from Hershkovitz (1992b), who erroneously attributed authorship of Thylamyinae to Reig et al. (1987).