Origins of the Australo-Pacific land mammal fauna

Monotremes probably originated in the Australian section of Gondwana during the Cretaceous. Australidelphians reached Australasia at some time between the mid-Cretaceous and Eocene by waif dispersal from South America. The ancestors of the New Zealand chiropteran genus Mystacina arrived from South America by waif dispersal, probably c35Ma BP. The remaining Chiroptera of the region are Asiatic in origin, and have been arriving throughout the Neogene, and probably later Paleogene. The Australasian murids are polyphyletic and compromise; New Guinean Old Endemics, New Guinean Rattus, Australian Old Endemics, and Australian Rattus. Murids had begun to arrive by the early Pliocene, and have continued to invade from Asia up to present. -from Author