Molecular Evidence for the Last Survivor of an Ancient Kangaroo Lineage

Abstract

The Australasian marsupial family Macropodidae includes potoroos and bettongs (Potoroinae) as well as larger kangaroos, wallabies, and pademelons (Macropodinae). Perhaps the most enigmatic macropodid is the banded hare wallaby, Lagostrophus fasciatus, a taxon listed as vulnerable by the IUCN. Lagostrophus had traditionally been grouped as a sister-taxon to hare wallabies (Lagorchestes), in a clade with hypsodont macropodines, or intercalated in some other fashion within Macropodinae. Flannery (1983, 1989) proposed a radically different hypothesis wherein Lagostrophus is outside of Macropodinae and is more closely related to extinct sthenurine (short-faced) kangaroos. Given this controversy, we addressed the phylogenetic placement of the banded hare wallaby using molecular sequences for three mitochondrial genes (12S rRNA, valine tRNA, 16S rRNA) and one nuclear gene (protamine P1). Diverse phylogenetic methods all provided robust support for a macropodine clade that excludes the banded hare wallaby. The split between macropodines and the banded hare wallaby was estimated at approximately 20 million years ago (mya) using the Thorne/Kishino relaxed molecular clock method. Whereas our molecular results neither corroborate nor refute the sthenurine hypothesis, since all short-faced kangaroos and their immediate ancestors are extinct, the overriding implication of molecular phylogenetic analyses is manifest: the banded hare wallaby is the only living relict of an ancient kangaroo lineage. Regardless of its precise relationships, special efforts should be directed at conserving this unique and endangered taxon, which has not been recorded from mainland Australia since 1906 and is now restricted to two tiny islands off the coast of Western Australia.

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