Historical biogeography of the marsupials

Abstract

Demonstration that the continents have moved extensively in geological time has led to a mass of palaeogeographic reassessments and reinterpretations of the early history of the marsupials, and of other animal and plant groups: see Keast (1971; republished as 1972a), Jardine and McKenzie (1972), Fooden (1972), Smith (1972), Raven and Axelrod (1972, 1974), Cracraft (1973, 1974), Cox (1973), Lillegraven (1974), Tedford (1974) and Rich (1975). Shorter discussions of specific aspects of the dispersal history of marsupials are contained in Lillegraven (1969), Hoffstetter (1970), Martin (1970) and Cox (1970). Several of the above writers include comprehensive reviews of the newer geological data on the changing palaeopositions of the continents. Tedford (1974) and Howden (1974) incorporate epicontinental seas into their reconstructions, and Cracraft, Raven and Axelrod, and Rich incorporate some data on palaeoclimates. The result is that we now have a much sounder basis for making deductions about marsupial palaeobiogeography. Many of our assertions and conclusions remain, however, highly tentative. There still exists in the literature ‘rampant contradictions and misinterpretations’ (Lillegraven, 1974: p. 263).