Molecular relationships of the red-bellied dasyure (Phascolosorex doriae) – a rare marsupial from western New Guinea

The mitochondrial genome of the rare endemic New Guinean dasyurid Phascolosorex doriae (Thomas 1886) has been used to clarify relationships within ‘phascolosoricinae’. The mitochondrial genome has the typical gene arrangement seen in other marsupials. Molecular analyses using complete mitogenomes of other dasyurids resolve the red-bellied dasyure as sister to the narrow-striped dasyure Phascolosorex dorsalis and show that these two species diverged in the early Pliocene. The invasion of emergent New Guinean rainforest habitats (in the late Miocene) by the common ancestor of Ph. doriae, Ph. dorsalis and Neophascogale lorentzii represents one of three separate such invasions by dasyurid lineages.