Comments: | Formerly considered to include the family Thylacomyidae; see Vaughan (1978:39) and Groves and Flannery (1990); but also see Archer and Kirsch (1977). Revised by Tate (1948b). Divided by McKenna and Bell (1997) into two families: Peramelidae, with two subfamilies, Chaeropodinae (for Chaeropus and Macrotis) and Peramelinae; and Peroryctidae, with two subfamilies, Peroryctinae and Echymiperinae. Molecular data (Westerman et al., 1999, 2001) do not support the monophyly of Chaeropodinae in the sense of McKenna and Bell (1997), show that Chaeropus is very distinct from other bandicoots, and do not support the monophyly of Peroryctidae. |