A New Group of Marsupials: Keeunamorphia

Publication Info:

Transcript:

Timothy James Churchill et al. A new metatherian order from Australia (Keeunamorphia, Metatheria), and new Early Miocene species from the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, northwestern Queensland. Journal of Paleontology, published online June 14, 2026; doi: 10.1017/jpa.2026.10238

A brand new group of fossil marsupials was just named from Australia. Phantasmodon and its close relatives are now known as Keeunamorphia!

Episode 293

Notes:

A brand new group of marsupials was just discovered in probably the least surprising place ever. Here's your most recent paleontology news almost daily or whenever I get around to it. I'm sure you know what marsupials are, but for anyone who doesn't, they're the group of mammals that raise their young in a pouch. That's the TLDR at least. You know, animals like kangaroos, possums, opossums, and Tasmanian devils. And currently they're pretty limited in some parts of the world. Like in the US we just kind of have the opossum right now. That said, it hasn't always been that way. Throughout our planet's history there have been more or less marsupials in various parts of the world. But one hotspot has kind of always been Australia. This is Phantasmodon travouilloni, the newly named marsupial from 18 million year old deposits in Australia. And along with the newly discovered Phantasmaradon minuferox, and another close yet to be named relative along with three other close relatives that were previously discovered, paleontologists are confident that they've found a new group of marsupials called Keeunamorphia. Keeunamorphia is one of the earliest diverging groups from Australia delphia, which is the group of marsupials including all modern Australian marsupials. And they went extinct in the middle miocene, but they may prove to be really helpful in understanding the connection between Australian marsupials and their origins elsewhere in Gondwana. As usual, if you want more information, here's the source.