Lagostrophus fasciatus

The banded hare-wallaby, mernine, or munning (Lagostrophus fasciatus) is a marsupial that is currently found on the Islands of Bernier and Dorre off western Australia. A small population has recently been established on Faure Island and it appears to have been successful. It has also been reintroduced to Wadderin Sanctuary, near Narembeen in the central wheatbelt, in 2013. Evidence suggested that the mernine was the only living member of the sthenurine subfamily, and a recent osteology-based phylogeny of macropodids found that the banded hare-wallaby was indeed a bastion of an ancient lineage, agreeing with other (molecular) appraisals of the evolutionary history of L. fasciatus. However, the authors analysis did not support the placement of the mernine within Sthenurinae, but suggest it belongs to a plesiomorphic clade which branched off from other macropodids in the early Miocene and put forward the new subfamily Lagostrophinae. Recent analysis of mtDNA extracted from fossils of the sthenurine Simosthenurus supports this conclusion. This new subfamily includes the banded hare-wallaby and the fossil genus Troposodon.