Mutpuracinus archibaldi, Murray & Megirian, 2000

Beck, Robin M. D., Voss, Robert S. & Jansa, Sharon A., 2022, Craniodental Morphology And Phylogeny Of Marsupials, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2022 (457), pp. 1-353 : 323

† Mutpuracinus

SPECIES SCORED: † Mutpuracinus archibaldi (type and only described species).

GEOLOGICAL PROVENANCE OF SCORED SPECIMENS: Bullock Creek Local Fauna, Camfield Beds, Northern Territory, Australia; Jaw Junction Site (Riversleigh Faunal Zone D), Riversleigh World Heritage Area, Queensland, Australia.

AGE OF SCORED SPECIMENS: based on biostratigraphy, the Bullock Creek Local Fauna is interpreted to be middle Miocene (Murray and Megirian, 1992; Megirian et al., 2010; Black et al., 2013; Schwartz, 2016; Trusler and Sharp, 2016), whereas Riversleigh Faunal Zone D is considered to be somewhat younger, namely early late Miocene, perhaps 10–12 Mya (Archer et al., 1989, 1994, 1995; Myers et al., 2001; Black et al., 2012b, 2013; Woodhead et al., 2014; Arena et al., 2015). In the absence of direct dates, we have conservatively assumed the entire span of the middle to late Miocene (Langhian to Messinian; Cohen et al., 2013 [updated]) for this taxon.

ASSIGNED AGE RANGE: 15.970 –5.333 Mya.

REMARKS: † Mutpuracinus archibaldi was originally described by Murray and Megirian (2000) based on fragmentary craniodental material from the Bullock Creek Local Fauna. Subsequently, a relatively complete, albeit somewhat disarticulated, skull (NTM P91168-5) was recovered from the Jaw Junction Site at Riversleigh (Murray and Megirian, 2006a). Murray and Megirian (2000, 2006a) identified † Mutpuracinus as a thylacinid, but its position was unstable in their phylogenetic analyses (Murray and Megirian, 2006a: appendix 2, figs. 2–4); notably, it was recovered as closer to Recent dasyurids than to thylacinids when added to the craniodental character matrix of Wroe and Musser (2001; see Murray and Megirian, 2006a: appendix 2 fig. 2B). The phylogenetic analyses of Archer et al. (2016), Kealy and Beck (2017), and Rovinsky et al. (2019) also did not support thylacinid affinities for † Mutpuracinus , and we follow the last two studies in considering this taxon to be Dasyuromorphia incertae sedis. Regardless of its true phylogenetic relationships, the craniodental morphology of † Mutpuracinus implies previously unsuspected dasyuromorphian homoplasy in either the dentition or auditory region, or both (Murray and Megirian, 2006a).