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The Tasmanian tiger, Thylacinus, now nests with Pucadelphys in the LRT

Wednesday, July 22, 2026 12:17

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Thylacinus, the Tasmanian tiger,
(Fig 1) looks more like a long-legged placental carnivore than any other extinct or extant marsupial. The large reptile tree (LRT) now nests recent Australian Thylacinus with Early Paleocene Bolivian Pucadelphys (Fig 1).

Earlier these two continents were united and temperate with Antarctic forests that served as refugia for post-asteroid survivors.

This hypothetical interrelationship goes back
prior to Early Cretaceous (130mya) Vincelestes (Fig 2, 3), itself a direct ancestor to the extant Tasmanian Devil, Sarcophilus (Fig 3).

If you want to know what some Cretaceous marsupials were like,
look no further than the bad-tempered Devil itself.

Figure 1. Above: Early Paleocene Pucadelphys from Bolivia compared to its LRT sister recently extinct Thylacinus from Australia.

According to Wikipedia – Pucadelphys
“A 2016 phylogenetic analysis recovered Pucadelphys as a member of a metatherian clade including sparassodonts and other South American taxa, but not marsupials (which are instead closer to Cretaceous North American species). The phylogenetic tree from the analysis is shown below.”

Figure 2. That large ‘double-rooted canine’ in Vincelestes was an enlarged premolar 5. The actual upper canine (orange) was overlooked until now. Unlikely premolars 1–4 were either missing or vestiges. There is no space for them in any case on this anteroposteriorly shortened skull.

Thylacinus cynocephalus
(Temminck 1824; Eocene to recent) is a wolf-like marsupial that became extinct in 1936 due to hunting by humans. Thylalcinus is related to Sarcophilus, and the Tasmanian devil, Dasyurus, the Australian quoll.

Figure 3. The large skull is the Tasmanian Devil, Sarcophilus. The smaller skull is Early Cretaceous Vincelestes (see figure 2). Note the reduction in number and size of the premolars from 5 down to 2. The reality of this was difficult to understand and embrace. This is the process of observation, stumbling then further observation leading to discovery, now requiring independent testing.

This appears to be a novel hypothesis of interrelationships.
If not, please provide a citation so I can promote it here.

References
Marshall LG and de Muizon C 1988. The dawn of the age of mammals in South America. National Geographic Research. 4(1): 23-55.
Temminck CJ 1824. Monographies de Mammalogie Tom. 1. Paris: Dufour. 60-65.
Wilson GP et al (4 co-authors) 2016. “A large carnivorous mammal from the Late Cretaceous and the North American origin of marsupials”. Nature Communications. 7 13734.

wiki/Pucadelphys
wiki/Thylacinus

Source: https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/2026/07/22/the-tasmanian-tiger-thylacinus-now-nests-with-pucadelphys-in-the-lrt/

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