Musteloidea is a superfamily of carnivoran mammals united by shared characteristics of the skull and teeth. Musteloids are the sister group of pinnipeds, the group which includes seals.[1]

Musteloidea
Temporal range: Oligocene–Present
Left-right: spotted skunk, red panda, wolverine and raccoon; representing the families Mephitidae, Ailuridae, Mustelidae and Procyonidae.
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Infraorder: Arctoidea
Superfamily: Musteloidea
Fischer, 1817
Families

Musteloidea comprises the following families:

In North America, ursids (bears) and musteloids first appeared in the Chadronian[citation needed] of the late Eocene, and in early-Oligocene Europe, immediately following the Grande Coupure extinction event.

The following cladogram is based on molecular phylogeny of six genes in Flynn (2005),[2] with the musteloids updated following the multigene analysis of Law et al. (2018).[3]

Caniformia

Canidae (dogs and other canines) African golden wolf

Arctoidea

Ursidae (bears) American black bear

Pinnipedia (seals) Common seal

Musteloidea

Mephitidae (skunks) Striped skunk

Ailuridae (red pandas) Red panda

Procyonidae (raccoons, coatis, kinkajous) Common raccoon

Mustelidae (weasels, otters, badgers) European polecat

("weasel" superfamily)

References

edit
  1. ^ Welsey-Hunt, G.D. & Flynn, J.J. (2005). "Phylogeny of the Carnivora: basal relationships among the Carnivoramorphans, and assessment of the position of 'Miacoidea' relative to Carnivora". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 3 (1): 1–28. Bibcode:2005JSPal...3....1W. doi:10.1017/S1477201904001518.
  2. ^ Flynn, J. J.; Finarelli, J. A.; Zehr, S.; Hsu, J.; Nedbal, M. A. (2005). "Molecular phylogeny of the Carnivora (Mammalia): Assessing the impact of increased sampling on resolving enigmatic relationships". Systematic Biology. 54 (2): 317–37. doi:10.1080/10635150590923326. PMID 16012099.
  3. ^ Law, Chris J.; Slater, Graham J.; Mehta, Rita S. (2018-01-01). "Lineage Diversity and Size Disparity in Musteloidea: Testing Patterns of Adaptive Radiation Using Molecular and Fossil-Based Methods". Systematic Biology. 67 (1): 127–144. doi:10.1093/sysbio/syx047. ISSN 1063-5157. PMID 28472434.