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The Biology of Marsupials pp 51–68Cite as

Phylogeny of the marsupials

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Part of the book series: Studies in Biology, Economy and Society

Abstract

The history of study of the Marsupialia begins early in the sixteenth century with discovery of the opossum by Spanish explorers of South America. As further accounts and specimens of the American and, soon thereafter, Australian marsupials reached Europe, biologists allied these new animals with a variety of eutherian (placental) mammals. Linnaeus classified the opossum with pigs, armadillos, hedgehogs and shrews. Kangaroos and wombats were thought to be related to rodents. During the nineteenth century de Blainville emphasised differences of reproductive systems in development of his classification and distinctly separated Didelphia, the marsupials, from the placentals or Monodelphia. It remained for subsequent biologists to recognise the evolutionary significance of this division.

At the University of California Professor Clemens is a member of the Department of Paleontology and chairman of the interdisciplinary programme in Human Evolution, Prehistory and Paleoenvironments. His research interests range from investigations of Australian Tertiary faunas through studies of American and European Mesozoic mammals and Early Palaeocene faunas.

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Authors
  1. W. A. Clemens
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science, University of Bradford, England

    Bernard Stonehouse

  2. Department of Physiology, University of Glasgow, Scotland

    Desmond Gilmore

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© 1977 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

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Clemens, W.A. (1977). Phylogeny of the marsupials. In: Stonehouse, B., Gilmore, D. (eds) The Biology of Marsupials. Studies in Biology, Economy and Society. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02721-7_4

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