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Fossils? the Phylogeny of Herpetotheriid and Peradectid Metatherians, Based on New Features from the Petrosal Anatomy S

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Fossils? the Phylogeny of Herpetotheriid and Peradectid Metatherians, Based on New Features from the Petrosal Anatomy S What are “opossum-like” fossils? The phylogeny of herpetotheriid and peradectid metatherians, based on new features from the petrosal anatomy S. Ladevèze, Charlène Selva, Christian de Muizon To cite this version: S. Ladevèze, Charlène Selva, Christian de Muizon. What are “opossum-like” fossils? The phy- logeny of herpetotheriid and peradectid metatherians, based on new features from the petrosal anatomy. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, Taylor & Francis, 2020, 18 (17), pp.1463-1479. 10.1080/14772019.2020.1772387. hal-03099643 HAL Id: hal-03099643 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03099643 Submitted on 6 Jan 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Journal of Systematic Palaeontology ISSN: 1477-2019 (Print) 1478-0941 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tjsp20 What are “opossum-like” fossils? The phylogeny of herpetotheriid and peradectid metatherians, based on new features from the petrosal anatomy Sandrine Ladevèze, Charlène Selva & Christian de Muizon To cite this article: Sandrine Ladevèze, Charlène Selva & Christian de Muizon (2020): What are “opossum-like” fossils? The phylogeny of herpetotheriid and peradectid metatherians, based on new features from the petrosal anatomy, Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, DOI: 10.1080/14772019.2020.1772387 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2020.1772387 View supplementary material Published online: 22 Jun 2020. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 21 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=tjsp20 Journal of Systematic Palaeontology, 2020 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2020.1772387 What are “opossum-like” fossils? The phylogeny of herpetotheriid and peradectid metatherians, based on new features from the petrosal anatomy à Sandrine Ladeveze , Charlene Selva and Christian de Muizon CR2P Centre de Recherche en Paleontologie, UMR 7207 (CNRS – MNHN – Sorbonne Universite), 8 rue Buffon CP38, F-75005 Paris (Received 19 November 2019; accepted 6 May 2020) The phylogenetic relationships of “opossum-like” metatherians, Herpetotheriidae and Peradectidae, continue to be debated, and yet they are key taxa in the evolutionary history of the crown-group Marsupialia. With state-of-the-art technologies such as X-ray computed tomography (CT scanning), it is now possible to access the inner anatomy of the skull and particularly the ear region, which is more and more frequently used in phylogenetic analyses. Here we describe for the first time the petrosal and inner ear anatomy of the type species Peratherium elegans from the early Oligocene of Ronzon, together with Amphiperatherium elegans from the Eocene of the Montmartre Gypsum. A parsimony analysis of cranial (including petrosal), dental and postcranial characters in 25 metatherians (extant and fossil taxa including the four herpetotheriids studied herein) does not support inclusion of herpetotheriids or peradectids within Didelphimorphia. The results indicate the monophyly of Peratherium cuvieri, P. elegans and A. minutum, but the other herpetotheriid in the analysis, Herpetotherium cf. fugax, is more closely related to the crown- group clade Marsupialia. Peradectids and herpetotheriids, traditionally considered as “opossum-like”, are here found to be stem metatherians and stem marsupials, respectively. The hypothesis in favour of an ancient origin of opossums (Didelphidae) is therefore questioned. Keywords: Herpetotheriidae; Metatheria; CT scan; comparative anatomy; auditory region; phylogeny Introduction Marsupialia, while peradectids were included in Didelphimorphia (i.e. the clade that comprises Herpetotheriids are considered key taxa in the evolution- Didelphidae and any fossil more closely related to ary history of Metatheria (the clade of therian mammals Didelphis than to Dromiciops) in a first cladistic ana- comprising marsupials and all taxa closer to opossums lysis of the phylogenetic affinities of “opossum-like” than to placentals) and particularly in the origin of opos- taxa (Horovitz et al. 2009). In his review of European sums (Didelphidae; Sanchez-Villagra et al. 2007; herpetotheriids, Crochet (1980) included the latter in the Horovitz et al. 2008). Herpetotheriids include fossil Didelphinae, but suggested they originated from an early metatherians whose dentition is considered “opossum- offshoot of South American Late Cretaceous “opossum- like”. They are documented in North America, Europe, like” taxa. The didelphimorphian affinities of herpeto- Asia, Africa and possibly South America, from the Late theriids were nonetheless questioned by some (Reig Cretaceous to the Miocene (see Goin & Candela 2004; et al. 1987; Kirsch et al. 1997), invoking an independ- Sanchez-Villagra et al. 2007; Ladeveze et al. 2012; ent origin from a peradectid stock and dental convergen- Oliveira & Goin 2012). ces with didelphids. The concept of “opossum-like” metatherians is struc- In the Palaeogene of Europe, across the “Grande tural rather than phylogenetic, uniting herpetotheriids Coupure”, both herpetotheriids and peradectids were and peradectids, with no phylogenetic basis. It is actu- abundant and are well documented in the fossil record, ally based on their overall morphological resemblance with almost complete skulls and partial skeletons. It is to extant opossums, which is, in many aspects, plesio- commonly accepted that European and North American morphic. While traditionally referred to didelphid mar- herpetotheriids are very similar with respect to their supials or didelphimorphians (e.g. Reig et al. 1987; dental morphology, hence justifying hypotheses of path- Goin 1991; Kirsch et al. 1997), herpetotheriids were ways and dispersals between the two continents. recovered as closely related to the crown-group However, their skull anatomy, which has not been à Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] # The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London 2020. All rights reserved. Published online 22 Jun 2020 2 S. Ladeveze et al. studied in detail thus far, is likely to provide different 682: previous number: Cuvier collection MNHN 7912). data such that the overall morphological resemblance The right petrosal is preserved. It is noteworthy that this of European and North American herpetotheriids specimen is a juvenile, with a dental ontogenetic stage may need to be questioned. European herpetotheriids are characterised by an upper deciduous premolar dP3 and represented by two genera, Peratherium and no M3 erupted, and a lower deciduous dp3 and erupted Amphiperatherium, the molar morphology of which is m3 (pers. obs.). Some of the observed characters may so similar that it has raised the question of a putative therefore be age-related. synonymy (Ladeveze et al. 2012). Here again, the skull Both taxa are compared to the recently described anatomy is likely to bring crucial information to resolve Peratherium cuvieri from the Montmartre Gypsum this issue. As far as the European herpetotheriids are (Selva & Ladeveze 2017). The holotype specimen concerned, only a fragmented skull of Peratherium (MNHN-GY-679: main and counterpart slabs, plus two cuvieri with almost-complete petrosals (Selva & mandibular fragments) contains the right petrosal. Ladeveze 2017) has been thoroughly described and Herpetotherium cf. fugax has been previously described compared to the well-preserved skull and petrosal bone and coded for a phylogenetic analysis (Sanchez-Villagra of the North American Herpetotherium cf. fugax et al. 2007; Horovitz et al. 2008). The 3D model of the (Sanchez-Villagra et al. 2007; Horovitz et al. 2008). left petrosal of this species (ZMB 50672) has been Here we describe, based on X-ray computed tomog- included in this study. raphy (CT scans), a three-dimensional (3D) model of Peradectiidae. Only one peradectid is known by its the petrosal bones of the two Palaeogene European her- petrosal bone: Mimoperadectes houdei (Horovitz et al. petotheriids Peratherium elegans, the type-species, and 2009) (right petrosal, USNM 482355). Amphiperatherium minutum. Anatomical features of their skull are coded in a morphological matrix includ- ing dental, cranial and postcranial characters, verified in Comparative anatomy selected metatherians. The cladistic analysis offers an The petrosal bone and bony labyrinth of the inner ear of interesting hypothesis in which Herpetotheriidae is para- Peratherium elegans are here thoroughly described and phyletic and Amphiperatherium and Peratherium form a compared to those of Peratherium cuvieri (Selva & clade. Many characters group the two European genera, Ladeveze 2017), in order to highlight basic resemblan- but they differ in their petrosal anatomy. Our result pro- ces and differences. Anatomical nomenclature mostly vides a new direction for addressing crucial questions follows Wible (2003), Ladeveze & de Muizon (2007, about metatherian biogeography. 2010) and Selva & Ladeveze (2017). As well, the anat- omy of the
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