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Australian Mammalogy Australian Mammalogy Society
Journal of the Australian Mammal Society
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Molecular relationships of the red-bellied dasyure (Phascolosorex doriae) – a rare marsupial from western New Guinea

M. Westerman https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6762-4470 A C , Stella Loke https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5767-6146 B and Mun Hua Tan B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Department of Ecology, Environment and Evolution, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Vic. 3086, Australia.

B Centre of Integrative Ecology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences Deakin University, Geelong, Vic. 3216, Australia.

C Corresponding author. Email: m.westerman@latrobe.edu.au

Australian Mammalogy 44(1) 182-184 https://doi.org/10.1071/AM21011
Submitted: 22 March 2021  Accepted: 27 May 2021   Published: 2 August 2021

Abstract

The mitochondrial genome of the rare endemic New Guinean dasyurid Phascolosorex doriae (Thomas 1886) has been used to clarify relationships within ‘phascolosoricinae’. The mitochondrial genome has the typical gene arrangement seen in other marsupials. Molecular analyses using complete mitogenomes of other dasyurids resolve the red-bellied dasyure as sister to the narrow-striped dasyure Phascolosorex dorsalis and show that these two species diverged in the early Pliocene. The invasion of emergent New Guinean rainforest habitats (in the late Miocene) by the common ancestor of Ph. doriae, Ph. dorsalis and Neophascogale lorentzii represents one of three separate such invasions by dasyurid lineages.

Keywords: dasyurid, Dasyuridae, marsupial, mitochondrial genome, New Guinea, Phascolosorex, rainforest, red-bellied phascogale.


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