The Cranial Endocast of the Early Miocene Marsupial, Wynyardia bassiana: An Assessment of Taxonomic Relationships Based upon Comparisons with Recent Forms
- 1 January 1981
- journal article
- research article
- Published by S. Karger AG in Brain, Behavior and Evolution
- Vol. 19 (1-2) , 17-36
- https://doi.org/10.1159/000121632
Abstract
Wynyardia bassiana, a possum-like marsupial from the early Miocene of Tasmania has long been considered to display skeletal features intermediate between the relatively primitive polyprotodont and the advanced diprotodont marsupials. Our examination of the latex endocast of the nearly intact neurocranium reveals that Wynyardia''s, brain is clearly phalangeroid in external morphology, resembling closely that of the extant phalangerid, Trichosurus vulpecula. These findings indicate that an unambigously phalangerid brain had evolved within the Diprotodonta, by 21 million years ago.Keywords
This publication has 7 references indexed in Scilit:
- RELATIONSHIPS OF THE VISUAL-CORTEX IN THE MARSUPIAL BRUSH-TAILED POSSUM, TRICHOSURUS-VULPECULA, A HORSERADISH-PEROXIDASE AND AUTORADIOGRAPHIC STUDY1980
- ORGANIZATION OF NEOCORTICAL PROJECTIONS FROM THE VENTROLATERAL THALAMIC NUCLEUS IN THE BRUSH-TAILED POSSUM, TRICHOSURUS-VULPECULA, AND THE PROBLEM OF MOTOR AND SOMATIC SENSORY CONVERGENCE WITHIN THE MAMMALIAN BRAIN1979
- ORGANIZATION OF NEOCORTICAL PROJECTIONS FROM VENTROPOSTERIOR THALAMIC COMPLEX IN MARSUPIAL BRUSH-TAILED POSSUM, TRICHOSURUS-VULPECULA - HORSERADISH-PEROXIDASE STUDY1978
- ATLAS OF DORSAL THALAMUS OF MARSUPIAL BRUSH-TAILED POSSUM, TRICHOSURUS-VULPECULA1978
- Cerebral Cortex: A Sensorimotor Amalgam in the MarsupialiaScience, 1963
- Physiological significance of sulci in somatic sensory cerebral cortex in mammals of the family procyonidaeJournal of Comparative Neurology, 1963
- An experimental investigation of the visual system in the phalanger, Trichosurus vulpecula1941