Miocene Barinya: a late surviving placental outgroup, not a dasyurid

According to Wikipedia,
“Barinya (Wroe 1999) is a fossil genus from the marsupial family Dasyuridae, which contains the oldest known undoubted dasyurid. The principal differences between Barinya and more recent dasyurids are in the dentition and skull morphology, with Barinya displaying more primitive features. One described fossil exists and at least one remains to be described. This genus has only been found at Riversleigh in Queensland, where it is quite common in deposits from the Oligo-Miocene.”

According to the LRT, dasyurid affinities for this taxon are in doubt.

Convergence can be difficult to deal with when you decide systematics on the basis of synapomorphies (= Pulling a Larry Martin) rather than the last common ancestor method used by the large reptile tree (LRT, 2180 taxa, Fig 2). More taxa minimize taxa exclusion and convergence issues. In the LRT Dasyurus nests about ten nodes away.

“Four derived cranial features present in Barinya wangalaare shared only with modern Dasyuridae among dasyuromorphians... Barinya wangalare presents the sister clade to a monophyletic taxon that includes all extant Dasyuridae. The perception that even basal Dasyuridae may represent morphological approximations of the ancestral australidelphian or dasyuromorphian is strongly refuted.”

Unfortunately, Australidephia is an invalid deep time genomic clade, the bane of modern paleontology. The sooner we dispense with deep time genomic studies, the less embarrassment and ridicule we’ll have to suffer through. Stick with traits.

I found this taxon
while reading the cladogram on a Gillespie, Archer and Hand 2016 study on Microleo. On a very small, cherry-picked taxon list, they nested Galadi and Barinya basal to the wombat clade. In the LRT they are not close to Microleo nor to wombats. Missing from the Gillespie, Archer and Hand study is Petaurus, the extant sugar glider, which nests basal to Wakaleo and Thylacoleo in the LRT.

References
Gillespie AK, Archer M and Hand SJ 2016. A tiny new marsupial lion (Marsupialia, Thylacoleonidae) from the early Miocene of Australia. Palaeontologia Electronica. Palaeontological Association. 19 (2.26A): 1–26.
Wroe S 1999. “The geologically oldest dasyurid, from the Miocene of Riversleigh, north-west Queensland”. Paleontology. 42:501-527.

wiki/Barinya
wiki/Australidelphia