Australidelphia


Australidelphia is the superorder that contains roughly three-quarters of all marsupials, including all those native to Australasia and a single species from South America. Analysis of retrotransposon insertion sites in the nuclear DNA of a variety of marsupials has shown that the South American monito del monte's lineage is the most basal of the superorder.
The Australian australidelphians form a clade, for which the name Euaustralidelphia has been proposed. The study also showed that the most basal of all marsupial orders are the other two South American groups. This indicates that Australidelphia arose in South America along with the other major divisions of extant marsupials, and likely reached Australia via Antarctica in a single dispersal event after Microbiotheria split off.

Phylogeny

Phylogeny of living Australidelphia based on the work of May-Collado, Kilpatrick & Agnarsson 2015 with extinct clades from Black et al. 2012

Taxonomy

The orders within this group are listed below: