Viverravidae ("ancestors of Viverridae") is an extinct monophyletic family of mammals from extinct superfamily Viverravoidea within the clade Carnivoramorpha, that lived from the early Palaeocene to the late Eocene in North America, Europe and Asia.[Malcolm C. McKenna, Susan K. Bell: Classification of Mammals: Above the Species Level in Columbia University Press, New York (1997), 631 Seiten. ] They were once thought to be the earliest carnivorans and ancestral to extant ones, but now are placed outside the order Carnivora based on cranial morphology as relatives (a Crown group) to extant carnivorans.
General characteristics
Wang and Tedford propose that they arose in North America 66–60 million years ago, spread to Asia then later to Europe, and were the first carnivoramorphans and possessed the first true pair of
carnassial teeth.
[Wang, Xiaoming; Tedford, Richard H. (2008.) "Dogs: Their Fossil Relatives and Evolutionary History." New York: Columbia University Press] In viverravids, the
skull is elongated and the number of molars is reduced to two (M1/m1 and M2/m2 are present and M3/m3 are absent).
Classification and phylogeny
Classification
Taxonomy retrieved from the Paleobiology Database
[Paleobiology Database. Retrieved with Fossilworks (March 3, 2017)]
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Superfamily: † Viverravoidea Family: † Viverravidae
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Subfamily: † Ictidopappus
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Subfamily: † Viverravinae
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Genus: † Simpsonictis
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† Simpsonictis jaynanneae
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† Simpsonictis pegus
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† Simpsonictis tenuis
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Genus: † Viverravus
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† Viverravus acutus
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† Viverravus gracilis
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† Viverravus lawsoni
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† Viverravus laytoni
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† Viverravus lutosus
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† Viverravus minutus
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† Viverravus politus
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† Viverravus rosei
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† Viverravus sicarius
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† Viverravus sp. V11141
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† Viverravus sp. Locality
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Genus: † Viverriscus
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Phylogeny
The phylogenetic relationships of family Viverravidae are shown in the following cladogram:
[J. J. Flynn and H. Galiano. (1982.) "Phylogeny of Early Tertiary Carnivora, With a Description of a New Species of Protictis From the Middle Eocene of Northwestern Wyoming" American Museum Novitates 2725:1-64][P. D. Gingerich and D. A. Winkler. (1985.) "Systematics of Paleocene Viverravidae (Mammalia, Carnivora) in the Bighorn Basin and Clark's Fork Basin, Wyoming." Contributions from the Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan 27(4):87-128][P. D. Polly. (1997.) "Ancestry and Species Definition in Paleontology: A Stratocladistic Analysis of Paleocene-Eocene Viverravidae (Mammalia, Carnivora) from Wyoming." Contributions from the Museum of Paleontology, University of Michigan 30(1):1-53][S. Faurby, L. Werdelin, A. Antonelli (2019.) "Dispersal ability predicts evolutionary success among mammalian carnivores" Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, Box 461, SE]
See also