marsupialis

Marsupialis is a taxonomic name that has appeared in scattered historical descriptions as a possible genus or clade of pouch-bearing mammals. It is not currently recognized as valid by major taxonomic databases, and there is no consensus on its composition or diagnostic features.

The name is derived from the Latin marsupium (pouch) and the suffix -alis, a common ending in taxonomic naming.

Because no formal description or type species is consistently associated with the name, Marsupialis is often treated as a nomen nudum or a historical, unused term in contemporary classifications. In older works, authors sometimes placed hypothetical species with unspecified morphology into Marsupialis, but those proposals have not been maintained in newer revisions.

Consequently, there is no verified distribution, ecology, or life-history data for Marsupialis. If it were to be revived as a valid genus, the assignment would depend on a published, peer-reviewed description detailing diagnostic characters and a type species, and its placement would be resolved within one of the marsupial orders, likely Didelphimorphia or Diprotodontia, depending on morphology and molecular data.

See also: Marsupialia, List of marsupials.