Musteloidea
Superfamily of carnivoran mammals / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 | |
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Left-right: spotted skunk, red panda, wolverine and raccoon; representing the families Mephitidae, Ailuridae, Mustelidae and Procyonidae. | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Carnivora |
Infraorder: | Arctoidea |
Superfamily: | Musteloidea Fischer, 1817 |
Families | |
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Musteloidea comprises the following families:
- Mephitidae, the skunks and stink badgers.
- Mustelidae, the weasel (mustelid) family, including new- and old-world badgers, ferrets and polecats, fishers, grisons and ratels, martens and sables, minks, river and sea otters, stoats and ermines, tayras and wolverines.
- Procyonidae, the raccoons and raccoon-like procyonids, including coatimundis, kinkajous, olingos, olinguitos, ringtails and cacomistles.
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 |
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