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Chunia bucklandioides is a species of flowering plant belonging to the family Hamamelidaceae. It is a tree native to Hainan and northern Vietnam . It is the sole species in genus Chunia .
- Introduction
- Identification
- Habitat
- Distribution
- Feeding and Diet
- Life History Cycle
- Fossils Description
- Evolutionary Relationships
- References
- Further Reading
Chunia was a primitive ektopodontid, a distinctive group of Cainozoic Australian possums that may have been specialized seed-eaters. Ektopodontids, first thought to be monotremes, had short faces, large, forward-facing eyes and the most unusual and complex teeth of any marsupial. Chunia, the most primitive of the ektopodontids, had molar teeth that...
There are three genera and five species of ektopodontids, known only from partial skulls, lower jaws and teeth. They had very short snouts and large, forward-facing eyes (a possible adaptation for nocturnal vision). The subtriangular to rectangular, low-crowned molar teeth of ektopodontids are highly distinctive, with transverse ridges broken up in...
During the late Oligocene the Lake Eyre region was covered by a large lake surrounded by humid woodland.
Chunia illuminata is known from Lake Palankarinna in the Lake Eyre Basin of South Australia. Other fossil material similar to Chunia illuminata (Chunia cf. illuminata) was found at nearby Lake Pinpa, South Australia.
Several suggestions for the diet of ektopodontids have been proposed, including seeds, nuts, fruits and leaves as well as aquatic invertebrates (presuming an aquatic lifestyle for ektopodontids) or insects (caterpillars or other soft bodied types). Judging by their rodent-like molars, ektopodontids were most likely gramnivores (seed-eaters).
Little is known of the life history of ektopodontids other than that they were most likely arboreal, as are other possums. No postcranial (all or part of the skeleton apart from the skull) fossils of ektopodontids have been found, making further assessment of their lifestyle difficult.
Chunia illuminata, from the late Oligocene Lake Palankarinna area (Etadunna Formation, Lake Eyre Basin, South Australia) is represented by isolated teeth and a maxillary fragment. There is a closely related or conspecific ektopodontid from Lake Pinpa (Namba Formation, Tarkarooloo Basin, South Australia) of about the same age.
Ektopodontids, known from the late Oligocene of central Australia to the Pleistocene of Victoria, are almost certainly a specialized group of phalangeroid possums. Monotreme affinities, first proposed, were soon discounted, and a proposed relationship between ektopodontids and phascolarctids (koalas) is debatable. The ancestors of ektopodontids hav...
Pledge, N. 1982. Enigmatic Ektopodon: A case history of palaeontological interpretation. Pp. 477-488 in Rich, P. V. and Thompson, E. M. (eds) The Fossil Vertebrate Record of Australasia.Monash Univ...Rich, T. H. 1982. Monotremes, placentals, and marsupials: their record in Australia and its biases. pp. 386-477 in Rich, P.V. and Thompson, E. M. (eds) The Fossil Vertebrate Record of Australasia.M...Rich, T. H., Piper, K. J., Pickering, D. and Wright, S. 2006. Further Ektopodontidae (Phalangeroidea, Mammalia) from southwestern Victoria. Alcheringa 30, 133-140.Stirton, R. A., Tedford, R. H. and Woodburne, M. O. 1967. A new Tertiary Formation and vertebrate fauna from the Tirari Desert, South Australia. Records of the South Australian Museum 15, 427-462.Archer, M. 1987. A Possum of a Very Different Kind. Pp. 67-69 in The Antipodean Arkedited by S. Hand and M. Archer, and illustrated by P. Schouten. Angus and Robertson Publishers, North Ryde.Long, J. A. et al. 2002. Prehistoric Mammals of Australia and New Guinea: One Hundred Million Years of Evolution.Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 240 pp.Phylogenetic analysis of Vombatiformes, using 124 craniodental and 20 postcranial characters, places these three species within Vombatoidea, wherein Marada arcanum is sister to species of ...
Apr 12, 2018 · Phylogenetic analysis showed that C. bucklandioides is sister to Sinowilsonia henryi among the species analyzed. The chloroplast genome sequence of C. bucklandioides offers a useful resource for future conservation genetics and phylogenetic studies. Chunia H. T. Chang is a monotypic plant genus of Hamamelidaceae (Zhang et al. 2003).
- Qiujie Zhou, Yongmei Chen, Jinhong Dai, Fei Wang, Wei Wu, Qiang Fan, Renchao Zhou, Wei Lun Ng
- 2019
Jan 1, 2024 · Chunia bucklandioides, a threatened species of the monotypic Chunia (Exbucklandi-oideae, Hamamelidaceae) that was known only from Hainan Island, China, is reported here for the flora of Vietnam.
Results indicate that the previously proposed 12 species (eight of Nambaroo and four of Ganawamaya) represent four species from a single genus (Ganawamaya)... View Citations
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Mar 21, 2023 · The second species we described is a newly discovered early possum, named Chunia pledgei. It had teeth that would be a dentist’s nightmare, with lots of bladed points (cusps) positioned side by...
