Aeluroidea is an extant
clade of
feline
Feline may refer to:
Zoology
* Loosely, Felidae, a member of the cat family, which includes the subfamilies Pantherinae and Felinae (conventionally designated a felid)
** Following the taxonomic convention, Felinae, the subfamily of Felidae that ...
-like
carnivores
A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other ...
that are, or were, endemic to
North America,
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...
,
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, and
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an ...
. They appeared during the
Oligocene
The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but ...
about .
Taxonomy
Aeluroidea was named by
William Henry Flower
Sir William Henry Flower (30 November 18311 July 1899) was an English surgeon, museum curator and comparative anatomist, who became a leading authority on mammals and especially on the primate brain. He supported Thomas Henry Huxley in an im ...
in 1869. It was assigned to Carnivora by Flower (1883) and Carroll (1988); and to Feliformia by Bryant (1991).
[H. N. Bryant. 1991. Phylogenetic relationships and systematics of the Nimravidae (Carnivora). Journal of Mammalogy 72(1):56-78]
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q4687717
Extant Oligocene first appearances