Marsupials from the Late Cretaceous of Uzbekistan

A fragment of dentary with m4, showing characters of some Late Cretaceous N orth American marsupials, is assigned to Marsasia sp. Marsasia Nessov, 1997 from the Coniacian of Uzbekistan, represented by M. aenigma known from ede ntulous dentaries with inflected angular processes, was attributed by Nesso v to ?Marsupialia. Marsasia sp., found in the same horizon as the type spec ies, resembles it in size and structure of the masseteric fossa, but differ s in having a less steep coronoid process. We assign Marsasia to Marsupiali a on the basis of the following characters: inflected angular process, shap e of the dentary similar to that in Asiatherium, postcanine dental formula, inferred from alveoli for p1-3, m1-4, and structure of m4 more similar to Cretaceous marsupials than eutherians. The phylogenetic position of Marsasi a may be between the Albian Kokopellia and Campanian Asiatherium. Marsasia is tentatively referred to the order Asiadelphia, which may represent an en demic Asian marsupial clade.