Mammalia
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur o ...
is a class of animal within the phylum
Chordata
A chordate () is an animal of the phylum Chordata (). All chordates possess, at some point during their larval or adult stages, five synapomorphies, or primary physical characteristics, that distinguish them from all the other taxa. These fiv ...
. Mammal classification has been through several iterations since
Carl Linnaeus
Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...
initially defined the class. No classification system is universally accepted; McKenna & Bell (1997) and Wilson & Reader (2005) provide useful recent compendiums.
Many earlier ideas from Linnaeus et al. have been completely abandoned by modern taxonomists, among these are the idea that
bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most ...
s are related to
bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...
s or that
human
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...
s represent a group outside of other living things. Competing ideas about the relationships of mammal orders do persist and are currently in development. Most significantly in recent years,
cladistic
Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups ("clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived char ...
thinking has led to an effort to ensure that all taxonomic designations represent
monophyletic
In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...
groups. The field has also seen a recent surge in interest and modification due to the results of
molecular phylogenetics
Molecular phylogenetics () is the branch of phylogeny that analyzes genetic, hereditary molecular differences, predominantly in DNA sequences, to gain information on an organism's evolutionary relationships. From these analyses, it is possible to ...
.
George Gaylord Simpson
George Gaylord Simpson (June 16, 1902 – October 6, 1984) was an American paleontologist. Simpson was perhaps the most influential paleontologist of the twentieth century, and a major participant in the modern synthesis, contributing '' Tempo ...
's classic "Principles of Classification and a Classification of Mammals" (
Simpson, 1945)
taxonomy
Taxonomy is the practice and science of categorization or classification.
A taxonomy (or taxonomical classification) is a scheme of classification, especially a hierarchical classification, in which things are organized into groups or types. ...
text laid out a
systematics
Biological systematics is the study of the diversification of living forms, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Relationships are visualized as evolutionary trees (synonyms: cladograms, phylogenetic tre ...
of
mammal
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or ...
origins and relationships that was universally taught until the end of the 20th century.
Since Simpson's 1945
classification, the
paleontological record has been recalibrated, and the intervening years have seen much debate and progress concerning the theoretical underpinnings of systematization itself, partly through the new concept of
cladistics
Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups (" clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived char ...
. Though field work gradually made Simpson's classification outdated, it remained the closest thing to an official classification of mammals. See
List of placental mammals
The class Mammalia (mammals) is divided into two subclasses based on reproductive techniques: monotremes, which lay eggs, and therians, mammals which give live birth, which has two infraclasses: marsupials ( pouched mammals) and placental mammals ...
and
List of monotremes and marsupials
The class Mammalia (mammals) is divided into two subclasses based on reproductive techniques: egg-laying mammals (yinotherians or monotremes - see also Australosphenida), and mammals which give live birth (therians). The latter subclass is divided ...
for more detailed information on mammal genera and species.
Molecular classification of placentals
Molecular studies by
molecular systematists, based on
DNA analysis, in the early 21st century have revealed new relationships among mammal families. Classification systems based on molecular studies reveal three major groups or lineages of
placental
Placental mammals (infraclass Placentalia ) are one of the three extant subdivisions of the class Mammalia, the other two being Monotremata and Marsupial
Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsup ...
mammals,
Afrotheria
Afrotheria ( from Latin ''Afro-'' "of Africa" + ''theria'' "wild beast") is a clade of mammals, the living members of which belong to groups that are either currently living in Africa or of African origin: golden moles, elephant shrews (also k ...
,
Xenarthra
Xenarthra (; from Ancient Greek ξένος, xénos, "foreign, alien" + ἄρθρον, árthron, "joint") is a major clade of placental mammals native to the Americas. There are 31 living species: the anteaters, tree sloths, and armadillos. Ex ...
, and
Boreotheria
Boreoeutheria (, "northern true beasts") is a magnorder of placental mammals that groups together superorders Euarchontoglires and Laurasiatheria. With a few exceptionsExceptional clades whose males lack the usual boreoeutherian scrotum are moles ...
. which diverged from early common ancestors in the
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...
.
The relationships between these three lineages is contentious, and all three have been proposed as basal in different hypotheses.
The following taxonomy only includes living placentals (infraclass Eutheria
Eutheria (; from Greek , 'good, right' and , 'beast'; ) is the clade consisting of all therian mammals that are more closely related to placentals than to marsupials.
Eutherians are distinguished from noneutherians by various phenotypic tra ...
):
Atlantogenata
Atlantogenata is a proposed clade of mammals containing the cohorts or superorders Xenarthra and Afrotheria. These groups originated and radiated in the South American and African continents, respectively, presumably in the Cretaceous. Together ...
Afrotheria
Afrotheria ( from Latin ''Afro-'' "of Africa" + ''theria'' "wild beast") is a clade of mammals, the living members of which belong to groups that are either currently living in Africa or of African origin: golden moles, elephant shrews (also k ...
*Class Afroinsectiphilia
The Afroinsectiphilia (African insectivores) is a clade that has been proposed based on the results of recent molecular phylogenetic studies. Many of the taxa within it were once regarded as part of the order Insectivora, but Insectivora is now ...
**Order Macroscelidea
***Family Macroscelididae: (20 species), sengis or elephant shrews (Africa)
**Order Afrosoricida
The order Afrosoricida (a Latin-Greek compound name which means "looking like African shrews") contains the golden moles of Southern Africa, the otter shrews of equatorial Africa and the tenrecs of Madagascar. These three families of small mamma ...
***Family Tenrecidae: (31 species), tenrecs (Madagascar)
***Family Potamogalidae
Potamogalidae is the family of "otter shrews", a group of semiaquatic riverine afrotherian mammals indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa. They are most closely related to the tenrecs of Madagascar, from which they are thought to have split about 47 ...
: (3 species), otter-shrews (West and Central Africa)
***Family Chrysochloridae
Golden moles are small insectivorous burrowing mammals endemic to Sub-Saharan Africa. They comprise the family Chrysochloridae and as such they are taxonomically distinct from the true moles, family Talpidae, and other mole-like families, all ...
: (21 species), golden moles (Africa south of the Sahara)
**Order Tubulidentata
Orycteropodidae is a family of afrotherian mammals. Although there are many fossil species, the only species surviving today is the aardvark, ''Orycteropus afer''. Orycteropodidae is recognized as the only family within the order Tubulidentata ...
***Family Orycteropodidae
Orycteropodidae is a family of afrotherian mammals. Although there are many fossil species, the only species surviving today is the aardvark, ''Orycteropus afer''. Orycteropodidae is recognized as the only family within the order Tubulidentata ...
: (1 species), aardvark (Africa south of the Sahara)
*Class Paenungulata
Paenungulata (from Latin ''paene'' "almost" + ''ungulātus'' "having hoofs") is a clade of "sub-ungulates", which groups three extant mammal orders: Proboscidea (including elephants), Sirenia (sea cows, including dugongs and manatees), and H ...
**Order Proboscidea
***Family Elephantidae
Elephantidae is a family of large, herbivorous proboscidean mammals collectively called elephants and mammoths. These are terrestrial large mammals with a snout modified into a trunk and teeth modified into tusks. Most genera and species in the ...
: (3 species), elephants (Africa, Southeast Asia)
**Order Hyracoidea
Hyraxes (), also called dassies, are small, thickset, herbivorous mammals in the order Hyracoidea. Hyraxes are well-furred, rotund animals with short tails. Typically, they measure between long and weigh between . They are superficially simila ...
***Family Procaviidae
Hyraxes (), also called dassies, are small, thickset, herbivorous mammals in the order Hyracoidea. Hyraxes are well-furred, rotund animals with short tails. Typically, they measure between long and weigh between . They are superficially simi ...
: (4 species), hyraxes, dassies (Africa, Arabia)
**Order Sirenia
The Sirenia (), commonly referred to as sea-cows or sirenians, are an order of fully aquatic, herbivorous mammals that inhabit swamps, rivers, estuaries, marine wetlands, and coastal marine waters. The Sirenia currently comprise two distinct ...
***Family Dugongidae
Dugongidae is a family in the order of Sirenia. The family has one surviving species, the dugong (''Dugong dugon''), one recently extinct species, Steller's sea cow (''Hydrodamalis gigas''), and a number of extinct genera known from fossil r ...
: (1 species), dugong (East Africa, Red Sea, North Australia)
***Family Trichechidae
Trichechidae is a family of sirenians that includes all living manatees and several extinct genera.
Systematics
TRICHECHIDAE
*MiosireninaeM. Voss. 2014. On the invalidity of Halitherium schinzii Kaup, 1838 (Mammalia, Sirenia), with comments o ...
: (3 species), manatees (tropical Atlantic coasts and adjacent rivers)
Xenarthra
Xenarthra (; from Ancient Greek ξένος, xénos, "foreign, alien" + ἄρθρον, árthron, "joint") is a major clade of placental mammals native to the Americas. There are 31 living species: the anteaters, tree sloths, and armadillos. Ex ...
*Order Cingulata
Cingulata, part of the superorder Xenarthra, is an order of armored New World placental mammals. Dasypodids and chlamyphorids, the armadillos, are the only surviving families in the order. Two groups of cingulates much larger than extant ar ...
**Family Chlamyphoridae
Chlamyphoridae is a family of cingulate mammals. While glyptodonts have traditionally been considered stem-group cingulates outside the group that contains modern armadillos, there had been speculation that the extant family Dasypodidae could b ...
: (14 species), armadillos (Neotropical)
**Family Dasypodidae
Dasypodidae is a family of mostly extinct genera of armadillos. One genus, '' Dasypus'', is extant, with at least seven living species.
__TOC__
Classification
Below is a taxonomy of armadillos in this family.
Family Dasypodidae
*† Genus ...
: (7 species), long-nosed armadillos (Neotropical and Nearctic)
*Order Pilosa
The order Pilosa is a clade of xenarthran placental mammals, native to the Americas. It includes the anteaters and sloths (which includes the extinct ground sloths). The name comes from the Latin word for "hairy".
Origins and taxonomy
The bi ...
(=Dasypoda)
**Suborder Vermilingua
Anteater is a common name for the four extant mammal species of the suborder Vermilingua (meaning "worm tongue") commonly known for eating ants and termites. The individual species have other names in English and other languages. Together with ...
(anteaters)
***Family Cyclopedidae
The Cyclopedidae is a family of anteaters that includes the silky anteater
The silky anteater, also known as the pygmy anteater, has traditionally been considered a single species of anteater, ''Cyclopes didactylus'', in the genus ''Cyclopes ...
: (1 species), silky anteater (Neotropical)
***Family Myrmecophagidae
The Myrmecophagidae are a family of anteaters, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek words for 'ant' and 'eat' (''myrmeco-'' and '). Two genera and three species are in the family, consisting of the giant anteater, and the tamanduas. T ...
: (3 species), anteaters (Neotropical)
**Suborder Folivora
Sloths are a group of Neotropical xenarthran mammals constituting the suborder Folivora, including the extant arboreal tree sloths and extinct terrestrial ground sloths. Noted for their slowness of movement, tree sloths spend most of their l ...
(sloths)
***Family Choloepodidae: (2 species), two-toed sloths (Neotropical)
***Family Bradypodidae: (4 species), three-toed sloths (Neotropical)
Boreoeutheria
Boreoeutheria (, "northern true beasts") is a magnorder of placental mammals that groups together superorders Euarchontoglires and Laurasiatheria. With a few exceptionsExceptional clades whose males lack the usual boreoeutherian scrotum are mo ...
Euarchontoglires
Euarchontoglires (synonymous with Supraprimates) is a clade and a superorder of mammals, the living members of which belong to one of the five following groups: rodents, lagomorphs, treeshrews, colugos, and primates.
Evolutionary affinities wi ...
*Superorder Euarchonta
The Euarchonta are a proposed grandorder of mammals: the order Scandentia (treeshrews), and its sister Primatomorpha mirorder, containing the Dermoptera or colugos and the primates (Plesiadapiformes and descendents).
The term "Euarchonta" (mea ...
**Order Scandentia
***Family Ptilocercidae (1 species), pen-tailed treeshrews (Southeast Asia)
***Family Tupaiidae
Tupaiidae is one of two families of treeshrews, the other family being Ptilocercidae. The family contains three living genera and 19 living species. The family name derives from ''tupai'', the Malay word for treeshrew and also for squirrel which ...
: (19 species), treeshrews (Southeast Asia)
**Mirorder Primatomorpha
The Primatomorpha are a proposed mirorder of mammals containing the flying lemurs (order Dermoptera or colugos) and lemurs (Strepsirrhini, adapiformes and lemuriformes). However, notably, the haplorhini are sister to the lemurs, together form ...
***Order Dermoptera
****Family Cynocephalidae: (2 species), flying lemurs or colugos (Southeast Asia)
***Order Primates: lemurs, bushbabies, monkeys, apes (cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan may refer to:
Food and drink
* Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo"
History
* Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953
Hotels and resorts
* Cosmopoli ...
)
****Family Cheirogaleidae
The Cheirogaleidae are the family of strepsirrhine primates containing the various dwarf and mouse lemurs. Like all other lemurs, cheirogaleids live exclusively on the island of Madagascar.
Characteristics
Cheirogaleids are smaller than the ...
: (32 species), dwarf lemurs (Madagascar)
****Family Lemuridae
Lemuridae is a family of strepsirrhine primates native to Madagascar and the Comoros. They are represented by the Lemuriformes in Madagascar with one of the highest concentration of the lemurs. One of five families commonly known as lemurs. Thes ...
: (22 species), lemurs (Madagascar)
****Family Lepilemuridae
The sportive lemurs are the medium-sized primates that make up the family Lepilemuridae. The family consists of only one extant genus, ''Lepilemur''. They are closely related to the other lemurs and exclusively live on the island of Madagascar. ...
: (26 species), sportive lemurs (Madagascar)
****Family Indriidae
The Indriidae (sometimes incorrectly spelled Indridae) are a family of strepsirrhine primates. They are medium- to large-sized lemurs, with only four teeth in the toothcomb instead of the usual six. Indriids, like all lemurs, live exclusively on ...
: (19 species), indri and sifakas (Madagascar)
****Family Daubentoniidae
''Daubentonia'' is the sole genus of the Daubentoniidae, a family of lemuroid primate native to much of Madagascar.
The aye-aye ''(Daubentonia madagascariensis)'' is the only extant member. However, a second species known as the giant aye-aye ...
: (1 species), aye-aye (Madagascar area)
****Family Lorisidae
Lorisidae (or sometimes Loridae) is a family of strepsirrhine primates. The lorisids are all slim arboreal animals and comprise the lorises, pottos and angwantibos. Lorisids live in tropical, central Africa as well as in south and southeast Asia. ...
: (9 species), lorises and potto (Africa and Southeast Asia)
****Family Galagidae
Galagos , also known as bush babies, or ''nagapies'' (meaning "night monkeys" in Afrikaans), are small nocturnal primates native to continental, sub-Sahara Africa, and make up the family Galagidae (also sometimes called Galagonidae). They are ...
: (19 species), galagos (Africa)
****Family Tarsiidae: (9 species), tarsiers (Southeast Asia)
****Family Callitrichidae
The Callitrichidae (also called Arctopitheci or Hapalidae) are a family of New World monkeys, including marmosets, tamarins, and lion tamarins. At times, this group of animals has been regarded as a subfamily, called the Callitrichinae, of the ...
: (41 species), marmosets and tamarins (South America)
****Family Cebidae: (14 species), New World monkeys (South America)
****Family Cercopithecidae: (137 species), Old World monkeys (Africa and Eurasia)
****Family Hylobatidae
Gibbons () are apes in the family Hylobatidae (). The family historically contained one genus, but now is split into four extant genera and 20 species. Gibbons live in subtropical and tropical rainforest from eastern Bangladesh to Northeast India ...
: (14 species), gibbons (Southeast Asia)
****Family Hominidae
The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the ea ...
: (8 species), great apes (worldwide)
*Superorder Glires
Glires (, Latin ''glīrēs'' 'dormice') is a clade (sometimes ranked as a grandorder) consisting of rodents and lagomorphs ( rabbits, hares, and pikas). The hypothesis that these form a monophyletic group has been long debated based on morp ...
**Order Lagomorpha
The lagomorphs are the members of the taxonomic order Lagomorpha, of which there are two living families: the Leporidae (hares and rabbits) and the Ochotonidae ( pikas). The name of the order is derived from the Ancient Greek ''lagos'' (λαγ ...
: pikas, rabbits, hares (Eurasia, Africa, Americas)
***Family Leporidae
Leporidae is the family of rabbits and hares, containing over 60 species of extant mammals in all. The Latin word ''Leporidae'' means "those that resemble ''lepus''" (hare). Together with the pikas, the Leporidae constitute the mammalian order ...
: (60 species), rabbits and hares (Eurasia, Africa, Americas)
***Family Ochotonidae: (30 species), pikas (Holarctic)
**Order Rodent
Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are na ...
ia: rodents (cosmopolitan)
***Suborder Castorimorpha
Castorimorpha is the suborder of rodents containing the beavers and the kangaroo rats. A 2017 study using retroposon markers indicated that they are most closely related to the Anomaluromorpha (the scaly-tailed squirrels and the springhare) and ...
****Family Castoridae
The family Castoridae contains the two living species of beavers and their fossil relatives. A highly diverse group of rodents within this family once roamed the earth, but only a single genus is extant today, '' Castor''.
Characteristics
Ca ...
: (2 species) beavers (Holarctic)
****Family Geomyidae: (about 35 species) pocket gophers (North America)
****Family Heteromyidae
Heteromyidae is a family of rodents consisting of kangaroo rats, kangaroo mice, pocket mice and spiny pocket mice. Most heteromyids live in complex burrows within the deserts and grasslands of western North America, though species within th ...
: (about 59 species) kangaroo rats and kangaroo mice (North America)
***Suborder Myomorpha
The suborder Myomorpha contains 1,524 species of mouse-like rodents, nearly a quarter of all mammal species. Included are mice, rats, gerbils, hamsters, lemmings, and voles. They are grouped according to the structure of their jaws and molar ...
****Family Dipodidae
Jerboas (from ar, جربوع ') are hopping desert rodents found throughout North Africa and Asia, and are members of the family Dipodidae. They tend to live in hot deserts.
When chased, jerboas can run at up to . Some species are preyed on b ...
: (33 species) jerboas (Africa, Eurasia, North America)
****Family Zapodidae
Zapodidae, the jumping mice, is a family of mouse-like rodents in North America and China.
Although mouse-like in general appearance, these rodents are distinguished by their elongated hind limbs, and, typically, by the presence of four pairs o ...
: (11 species) jumping mice (North America, Asia)
****Family Sicistidae
Birch mice (genus ''Sicista'') are small jumping rodents that resemble mice with long, tufted tails and very long hind legs, allowing for remarkable leaps. They are the only extant members of the family Sminthidae. They are native to Eurasian for ...
: (19 species) birch mice (Eurasia)
****Family Platacanthomyidae
The rodent family Platacanthomyidae, or Oriental dormice, includes the spiny dormice and the Chinese pygmy dormice. In spite of their appearance, these animals are not true dormice, but are part of the large and complex superfamily Muroidea. ...
: (3 species) spiny dormouse (Southeast Asia)
****Family Spalacidae
The Spalacidae, or spalacids, are a family of rodents in the large and complex superfamily Muroidea. They are native to eastern Asia, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, and southeastern Europe. It includes the blind mole-rats, bamboo rats, m ...
: (37 species) zokors, root rats, blind mole rats (Africa, Eurasia)
****Family Calomyscidae
200px, right
200px, Mouse-like hamster using its tail for balance while standing on a branch (a feat difficult for hamsters)
Mouse-like hamsters are a group of small rodents found in Syria, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakis ...
: (8 species) mouse-like hamsters (Asia)
****Family Nesomyidae
The Nesomyidae are a family of African rodents in the large and complex superfamily Muroidea. It includes several subfamilies, all of which are native to either continental Africa or to Madagascar. Included in this family are Malagasy rodents, ...
: (68 species) old endemic African muroids (Africa, Madagascar)
****Family Cricetidae
The Cricetidae are a family of rodents in the large and complex superfamily Muroidea. It includes true hamsters, voles, lemmings, muskrats, and New World rats and mice. At almost 608 species, it is the second-largest family of mammals, and has m ...
: (about 580 species) hamsters, voles, and New World rats and mice (Holarctic, South America)
****Family Muridae
The Muridae, or murids, are the largest family of rodents and of mammals, containing approximately 1,383 species, including many species of mice, rats, and gerbils found naturally throughout Eurasia, Africa, and Australia.
The name Muridae come ...
: (about 1,383 species) Old World rats and mice and gerbils (Africa, Eurasia, Australia)
***Suborder Anomaluromorpha
Anomaluromorpha is a clade that unites the anomalures, springhares, and zenkerella. It has alternately been designated as either a suborder or infraorder. Most recently, recognized it as one of five suborders of rodents.
Characteristics
...
****Family Anomaluridae: (6 species) scaly-tailed flying squirrels (Africa)
****Family Pedetidae
The Pedetidae are a family of mammals from the rodent order. The two living species, the springhares, are distributed throughout much of southern Africa and also around Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Fossils have been found as far north as Turkey.M ...
: (2 species) springhares or springhaas (Africa)
***Suborder Hystricomorpha
The term Hystricomorpha (from Greek ὕστριξ, ''hystrix'' 'porcupine' and Greek μορφή, ''morphē'' 'form') has had many definitions throughout its history. In the broadest sense, it refers to any rodent (except dipodoids) with a hystr ...
****Family Ctenodactylidae: (5 species) gundis (Africa, Asia)
****Family Diatomyidae
Diatomyidae is a family of hystricomorph rodents. It is represented by a single living species, ''Laonastes aenigmamus,'' native to Laos in Southeast Asia. Fossil species are known from the Oligocene and Miocene of Asia and eastern Europe.
"Laz ...
: (1 species) Laotian rock rat (Southeast Asia)
****Family Hystricidae: (11 Species) Old World porcupines (Africa, Asia)
****Family Bathyergidae: (about 21 species) African mole-rats (Africa)
****Family Petromuridae
Petromuridae is a family of hystricognath rodents that contains the dassie rat ''(Petromus typicus)'' of southwestern Africa, the only extant member of this group.
The genus ''Petromus
''Petromus'' is a genus of hystricognath rodents that co ...
: (1 species) rock dassies (Africa)
****Family Thryonomyidae
Thryonomyidae is a family of hystricognath rodents that contains the cane rats ''(Thryomys)'' found throughout sub-Saharan Africa, and a number of fossil genera.
Taxonomy
Thryonomyidae was formerly more diverse and widespread, with fossil relati ...
: (2 species) cane rats (Africa)
****Family Erethizontidae: (19 species) New World porcupines (New World)
****Family Chinchillidae
The family Chinchillidae is in the order Rodentia and consists of the chinchillas, the viscachas, and their fossil relatives. This family is restricted to southern and western South America, mostly living in mountainous regions of the Andes but ...
: (3 species) chinchillas and viscachas (South America)
****Family Dinomyidae
The Dinomyidae are a family of South American hystricognath rodents: the dinomyids were once a very speciose group, but now contains only a single living species, the pacarana. Several of the extinct dinomyids were among the largest rodents know ...
: (1 species) pacarana (South America)
****Family Caviidae
Caviidae, the cavy family, is composed of rodents native to South America and includes the domestic guinea pig, wild cavies, and the largest living rodent, the capybara. They are found across South America in open areas from moist savanna to tho ...
: (18 species) cavies and capybara (South America)
****Family Dasyproctidae
Dasyproctidae is a family of large South American rodents, comprising the agoutis and acouchis. Their fur is a reddish or dark colour above, with a paler underside. They are herbivorous, often feeding on ripe fruit that falls from trees. They liv ...
: (13 species) agoutis and acouchis (South America)
****Family Cuniculidae: (about 3 species) paca (South America)
****Family Ctenomyidae
A tuco-tuco is a neotropical rodent in the family Ctenomyidae.Parada, A., G. D’Elia, C.J. Bidau, and E.P. Lessa. 2011. Species Groups and the Evolutionary Diversification of Tuco-Tucos, genus ''Ctenomys'' (Rodentia: Ctenomyidae). ''Journal of M ...
: (about 60 species) tuco-tucos (South America)
****Family Octodontidae
Octodontidae is a family of rodents, restricted to southwestern South America. Fourteen species of octodontid are recognised, arranged in seven genera. The best known species is the common degu, ''Octodon degus''.
Octodontids are medium-sized ...
: (14 species) degus (South America)
****Family Abrocomidae: (9 species) chinchilla-rats (South America)
****Family Echimyidae
Echimyidae is the family of neotropical spiny rats and their fossil relatives. This is the most species-rich family of hystricognath rodents. It is probably also the most ecologically diverse, with members ranging from fully arboreal to terr ...
: spiny rats (South America)
****Family Capromyidae: (10 species) hutias (South America)
****Family Heptaxodontidae
Heptaxodontidae, rarely called giant hutia, is an extinct family (taxonomy), family of large rodents known from fossil and subfossil material found in the West Indies. One species, ''Blunt-toothed giant hutia, Amblyrhiza inundata'', is estimated ...
: giant Hutias (recently extinct)
****Family Myocastoridae
Myocastorini is a tribe of echimyid rodents, proposed in 2017, and containing the five extant genera '' Callistomys'', '' Hoplomys'', '' Myocastor'', ''Proechimys
''Proechimys'' is a genus of South American spiny rats of the family Echimyida ...
: (57 species) nutrias (South America)
***Suborder Sciuromorpha
Sciuromorpha ("squirrel-like") is a rodent clade that includes several different rodent families. It includes all members of the Sciuridae (the squirrel family) as well as the mountain beaver species.
Traditionally, the term has been defined on ...
****Family Aplodontiidae
The family Aplodontiidae also known as Aplodontidae, Haplodontiidae or Haploodontini is traditionally classified as the sole extant family of the suborder Protrogomorpha. It may be the sister family of the Sciuridae.
There are fossils from the ...
: (1 species) mountain beaver (western North America)
****Family Sciuridae
Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels. Squ ...
: (about 285 species) squirrels, chipmunks, and marmots (cosmopolitan except Australia)
****Family Gliridae: (29 species) dormice (Africa, Eurasia)
Laurasiatheria
Laurasiatheria ("laurasian beasts") is a superorder of placental mammals that groups together true insectivores ( eulipotyphlans), bats ( chiropterans), carnivorans, pangolins ( pholidotes), even-toed ungulates ( artiodactyls), odd-toed ungulat ...
*Order Eulipotyphla
Eulipotyphla (, which means "truly fat and blind") is an order of mammals suggested by molecular methods of phylogenetic reconstruction, which includes the laurasiatherian members of the now-invalid polyphyletic order Lipotyphla, but not the ...
**Family Solenodontidae
Solenodons (from el, τέλειος , 'channel' or 'pipe' and el, ὀδούς , 'tooth') are venomous, nocturnal, burrowing, insectivorous mammals belonging to the family Solenodontidae . The two living solenodon species are the Cuban solen ...
: (2 species) solenodons (Cuba, Hispaniola)
**Family Nesophontidae
''Nesophontes'', sometimes called West Indies shrews, is the sole genus of the extinct, monotypic mammal family Nesophontidae in the order Eulipotyphla. These animals were small insectivores, about 5 to 15 cm long, with a long slender snout ...
: nesophontes (West Indies shrews) ecently extinct**Family Soricidae: (385 species) shrews (Eurasia, Africa, North America to northern South America)
**Family Talpidae
The family Talpidae () includes the moles (some of whom are called shrew moles and desmans) who are small insectivorous mammals of the order Eulipotyphla. Talpids are all digging animals to various degrees: moles are completely subterranean ...
: (59 species) moles, shrew-moles, desmans (Eurasia, North America)
**Family Erinaceidae: (26 species)hedgehogs, gymnures (Eurasia, Africa)
**Family Galericidae
Gymnures, also called hairy hedgehogs or moonrats, are mammals belonging to the subfamily Galericinae, in the family Erinaceidae and the order Eulipotyphla. Gymnures resemble rats but are not closely related as they are not rodents; they are ...
: (8 species) moonrats (southeast Asia)
*Grandorder Chiroptera
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most bir ...
**Order Chiroptera
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most bir ...
: bats
***Suborder Yinpterochiroptera
****Family Pteropodidae: (about 197 species) flying foxes (Africa, Eurasia, Australia)
****Family Hipposideridae
The Hipposideridae are a family of bats commonly known as the Old World leaf-nosed bats. While it has often been seen as a subfamily, Hipposiderinae, of the family Rhinolophidae, it is now more generally classified as its own family.Simmons, 20 ...
: (84 species) trident bats, leaf-nosed bats
****Family Rhinolophidae: (106 species) horseshoe bats (Old World)
****Family Rhinopomatidae: (6 species) mouse-tailed bats (Africa, Southeast Asia)
****Family Craseonycteridae: (1 species) Kitti's hog-nosed bat (Thailand)
****Family Megadermatidae
Megadermatidae, or false vampire bats, are a family of bats found from central Africa, eastwards through southern Asia, and into Australia. They are relatively large bats, ranging from 6.5 cm to 14 cm in head-body length. They have la ...
: (6 species) false vampire bats (Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia)
***Suborder Yangochiroptera
****Family Emballonuridae
Emballonuridae is a family of microbats, many of which are referred to as sac-winged or sheath-tailed bats. They are widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions around the world. The earliest fossil records are from the Eocene.
Descr ...
: (54 species) sac-winged bats (southern continents)
****Family Nycteridae: (about 15 species) slit-faced bats (Africa, Southeast Asia)
****Family Mystacinidae
__NOTOC__
Mystacinidae is a family of unusual bats, the New Zealand short-tailed bats. There is one living genus, '' Mystacina'', with two species, one of which could have possibly become extinct in the 1960s. They are medium-sized bats, about in ...
: (about 2 species) short-tailed bats (New Zealand)
****Family Thyropteridae
Disk-winged bats are a small group of bats of the family Thyropteridae and genus Thyroptera. They are found in Central and South America, usually in moist tropical rain forests. It is a very small family, consisting of a single genus with five e ...
: (5 species) sucker-footed bats (South America)
****Family Furipteridae
Furipteridae is family of bats, allying two genera of single species, '' Amorphochilus schnablii'' (smoky bat) and the type '' Furipterus horrens'' (thumbless bat). They are found in Central and South America and are closely related to the bats ...
: (2 species) smoky bats (South America)
****Family Noctilionidae: (2 species) fishing bats (South America)
****Family Mormoopidae
The family Mormoopidae contains bats known generally as mustached bats, ghost-faced bats, and naked-backed bats. They are found in the Americas from the Southwestern United States to Southeastern Brazil.
They are distinguished by the presenc ...
: (about 11 species) leaf-chinned bats (South America)
****Family Phyllostomidae: (192 species) leaf-nosed bats (South America)
****Family Myzopodidae
''Myzopoda'', which has two described species, is the only genus in the bat family Myzopodidae. Myzopodidae is unique as the only family of bats presently endemic to Madagascar. However, fossil discoveries indicate that the family has an ancie ...
: (2 species) sucker-footed bats (Madagascar)
****Family Natalidae
The family Natalidae, or funnel-eared bats, are found from Mexico to Brazil and the Caribbean islands. The family has three genera, '' Chilonatalus'', '' Natalus'' and '' Nyctiellus''. They are slender bats with unusually long tails and, as th ...
: (10 species) funnel-eared bats (South America)
****Family Molossidae: (about 110 species) free-tailed bats (cosmopolitan)
****Family Miniopteridae
''Miniopterus'', known as the bent-winged or long winged bats, is the sole genus of the family Miniopteridae. They are small flying insectivorous mammals, micro-bats of the order Chiroptera, with wings over twice the length of the body. The genus ...
: (about 40 species) long-fingered bats (Africa, Eurasia, Australia)
****Family Cistugidae
''Cistugo'' is a genus of bats from southern Africa. The two species have historically been included in the genus ''Myotis'' (family Vespertilionidae), but molecular studies show that the genus is distinct from all other Vespertilionidae, and in ...
: (2 species) wing-gland bats (Southern Africa)
****Family Vespertilionidae
Vespertilionidae is a family of microbats, of the order Chiroptera, flying, insect-eating mammals variously described as the common, vesper, or simple nosed bats. The vespertilionid family is the most diverse and widely distributed of bat familie ...
: (over 300 species) vesper bats (cosmopolitan)
*Grandorder Ferae
Ferae ( , , "wild beasts") is a mirorder of placental mammalsMalcolm C. McKenna, Susan K. Bell: ''Classification of Mammals: Above the Species Level'' in Columbia University Press, New York (1997), 631 Seiten. that groups together clades Pan-C ...
**Order Pholidota
Pangolins, sometimes known as scaly anteaters, are mammals of the order Pholidota (, from Ancient Greek ϕολιδωτός – "clad in scales"). The one extant family, the Manidae, has three genera: ''Manis'', ''Phataginus'', and ''Smutsia'' ...
***Family Manidae: (about 8 species) pangolins, scaly anteaters (Africa, South Asia)
**Order Carnivora
Carnivora is a Clade, monophyletic order of Placentalia, placental mammals consisting of the most recent common ancestor of all felidae, cat-like and canidae, dog-like animals, and all descendants of that ancestor. Members of this group are f ...
: carnivorans (cosmopolitan)
***Suborder Feliformia
Feliformia is a suborder within the order Carnivora consisting of "cat-like" carnivorans, including cats (large and small), hyenas, mongooses, viverrids, and related taxa. Feliformia stands in contrast to the other suborder of Carnivora, Canifor ...
****Family Nandiniidae: (4 species) African palm civet (Central Africa)
****Family Prionodontidae
The Asiatic linsang (''Prionodon'') is a genus comprising two species native to Southeast Asia: the banded linsang (''Prionodon linsang'') and the spotted linsang (''Prionodon pardicolor''). ''Prionodon'' is considered a sister taxon of the Fel ...
: (2 species) Asiatic linsangs (Southeast Asia)
****Family Felidae
Felidae () is the family of mammals in the order Carnivora colloquially referred to as cats, and constitutes a clade. A member of this family is also called a felid (). The term "cat" refers both to felids in general and specifically to the ...
: (41 species) cats (cosmopolitan except Australia)
****Family Viverridae
Viverridae is a family (biology), family of small to medium-sized, feliform mammals. The viverrids () comprise 33 species placed in 14 genera. This family was named and first described by John Edward Gray in 1821. Viverrids occur all over Africa, ...
: (33 species) civets, Asiatic palm civets (Africa, Southern Europe, Southeast Asia)
****Family Herpestidae
A mongoose is a small terrestrial carnivorous mammal belonging to the family Herpestidae. This family is currently split into two subfamilies, the Herpestinae and the Mungotinae. The Herpestinae comprises 23 living species that are native to so ...
: (34 species) mongooses (Africa, Asia, Southern Europe)
****Family Eupleridae
Eupleridae is a family of carnivorans endemic to Madagascar and comprising 10 known living species in seven genera, commonly known as euplerids, Malagasy mongooses or Malagasy carnivorans. The best known species is the fossa (''Cryptoproct ...
: (10 species) Malagasy carnivorans (Madagascar)
****Family Hyaenidae: (4 species) hyaenas, aardwolf (Africa)
***Suborder Caniformia
****Family Canidae: (38 species) dogs (cosmopolitan)
****Family Ursidae
Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Nort ...
: (8 species) bears (Europe, Asia, New World)
****Family Otariidae: (15 species) eared seals (cosmopolitan except North Atlantic)
****Family Odobenidae
Odobenidae is a family of pinnipeds. The only living species is the walrus (''Odobenus rosmarus''). In the past, however, the group was much more diverse, and includes more than a dozen fossil genera.
Taxonomy
All genera, except ''Odobenus'', ...
: (1 species) walrus (Northern North American, Northern Europe, Northern Asia)
****Family Phocidae: (18 species) true seals (cosmopolitan)
****Family Ailuridae
Ailuridae is a family in the mammal order Carnivora. The family consists of the red panda (the sole living representative) and its extinct relatives.
Georges Cuvier first described ''Ailurus'' as belonging to the raccoon family in 1825; this cl ...
: (1 species) red panda (South-Central Asia)
****Family Mephitidae
Mephitidae is a family of mammals comprising the skunks and stink badgers. They are noted for the great development of their anal scent glands, which they use to deter predators. Skunks were formerly classified as a subfamily of the Mustelidae ...
: (12 species) skunks (Southeast Asia, New World)
****Family Mustelidae
The Mustelidae (; from Latin ''mustela'', weasel) are a family of carnivorous mammals, including weasels, badgers, otters, ferrets, martens, minks and wolverines, among others. Mustelids () are a diverse group and form the largest family in ...
: (about 69 species) weasels and relatives (cosmopolitan except Australia)
****Family Procyonidae: (14 species) ringtails, olingos, kinkajou, raccoons, coatis (New World)
*Grandorder Ungulata
Ungulates ( ) are members of the diverse clade Ungulata which primarily consists of large mammals with hooves. These include odd-toed ungulates such as horses, rhinoceroses, and tapirs; and even-toed ungulates such as cattle, pigs, giraffes, ...
**Order Perissodactyla: odd-toed ungulates
***Family Equidae
Equidae (sometimes known as the horse family) is the taxonomic family of horses and related animals, including the extant horses, asses, and zebras, and many other species known only from fossils. All extant species are in the genus '' Equus'', ...
: (13 species) horses, zebras, donkeys (Africa, West and Central Asia)
***Family Tapiridae
Tapirs ( ) are large, herbivorous mammals belonging to the family Tapiridae. They are similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile nose trunk. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South and Central America, with one species inhabi ...
: (3 species) tapirs (Central and South America, Southeast Asia)
***Family Rhinocerotidae
A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species ...
: (5 species) rhinoceroses (Africa, Southeast Asia)
**Order Artiodactyla
The even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla , ) are ungulates—hoofed animals—which bear weight equally on two (an even number) of their five toes: the third and fourth. The other three toes are either present, absent, vestigial, or pointing poster ...
: even-toed ungulates (now includes Cetacea
Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively carnivorous diet. They propel them ...
ns)
***Suborder Suiformes
****Family Suidae: (18 species) pigs (Africa, Eurasia)
****Family Tayassuidae: (about 3 species) peccaries (New World)
***Suborder Tylopoda
Tylopoda (meaning "calloused foot") is a suborder of terrestrial herbivorous even-toed ungulates belonging to the order Artiodactyla. They are found in the wild in their native ranges of South America and Asia, while Australian feral camels ...
****Family Camelidae
Camelids are members of the biological family Camelidae, the only currently living family in the suborder Tylopoda. The seven extant members of this group are: dromedary camels, Bactrian camels, wild Bactrian camels, llamas, alpacas, vicuñas, ...
: (7 species) camels (South America, Asia)
***Suborder Ruminantia
Ruminants ( suborder Ruminantia) are hoofed herbivorous grazing or browsing mammals that are able to acquire nutrients from plant-based food by fermenting it in a specialized stomach prior to digestion, principally through microbial actions. The ...
****Family Tragulidae
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often v ...
: (10 species) mouse-deer (Africa, Asia)
****Family Antilocapridae
The Antilocapridae are a family of artiodactyls endemic to North America. Their closest extant relatives are the giraffids with which they comprise the superfamily Giraffoidea. Only one species, the pronghorn (''Antilocapra americana''), is ...
: (1 species) pronghorn (North America)
****Family Giraffidae
The Giraffidae are a family of ruminant artiodactyl mammals that share a common ancestor with deer and bovids. This family, once a diverse group spread throughout Eurasia and Africa, presently comprises only two extant genera, the giraffe (one ...
: (2-9 species) giraffe and okapi (Africa)
****Family Cervidae
Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...
: (26 species) deer (Holarctic, South America)
****Family Moschidae
Moschidae is a family of pecoran even-toed ungulates, containing the musk deer (''Moschus'') and its extinct relatives. They are characterized by long 'saber teeth' instead of horns, antlers or ossicones, modest size (''Moschus'' only reaches ; ...
: (7 species) musk deer (Asia)
****Family Bovidae
The Bovidae comprise the biological family of cloven-hoofed, ruminant mammals that includes cattle, bison, buffalo, antelopes, and caprines. A member of this family is called a bovid. With 143 extant species and 300 known extinct species, ...
: (143 species) cattle, antelope, sheep, etc. (Africa, Holarctic)
***Suborder Whippomorpha
Whippomorpha or Cetancodonta is a group of animals that contains all living cetaceans (whales, dolphins, etc.) and hippopotamuses, as well as their extinct relatives, i.e. Entelodonts and Andrewsarchus. All Whippomorphs are descendants of the la ...
****Family Hippopotamidae
Hippopotamidae is a family of stout, naked-skinned, and semiaquatic artiodactyl mammals, possessing three-chambered stomachs and walking on four toes on each foot. While they resemble pigs physiologically, their closest living relatives are t ...
: (2 species) hippos (Africa)
****Infraorder Cetacea
Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively carnivorous diet. They propel them ...
*****Parvorder Mysticeti
******Family Balaenopteridae: (10 species) rorquals and grey whales (cosmopolitan)
******Family Balaenidae: (4 species) right and bowhead whales (polar and temperate waters)
******Family Eschrichtiidae: (1 species) gray whale (North Pacific and North Atlantic)
******Family Neobalaenidae
Neobalaenidae is a family of baleen whales (suborder Mysticeti) including the extant pygmy right whale. Although traditionally considered related to balaenids, a recent phylogenetic study by Fordyce and Marx (2013) recovered the living pygmy ri ...
: (1 species) pygmy right whales (southern hemisphere)
*****Parvorder Odontoceti
The toothed whales (also called odontocetes, systematic name Odontoceti) are a parvorder of cetaceans that includes dolphins, porpoises, and all other whales possessing teeth, such as the beaked whales and sperm whales. Seventy-three species of ...
******Family Delphinidae
Oceanic dolphins or Delphinidae are a widely distributed family of dolphins that live in the sea. Close to forty extant species are recognised. They include several big species whose common names contain "whale" rather than "dolphin", such as the ...
: (about 37 species) dolphins (cosmopolitan)
******Family Monodontidae
The cetacean family Monodontidae comprises two living whale species, the narwhal and the beluga whale and at least four extinct species, known from the fossil record. Beluga and Narwhal are native to coastal regions and pack ice around the Arctic ...
: (2 species) beluga and narwhal (Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific)
******Family Phocoenidae
Porpoises are a group of fully aquatic marine mammals, all of which are classified under the family Phocoenidae, parvorder Odontoceti (toothed whales). Although similar in appearance to dolphins, they are more closely related to narwhals ...
: (8 species) porpoises (cosmopolitan)
******Family Physeteridae: (3 species) sperm whales (cosmopolitan)
******Family Kogiidae: (2 species) dwarf sperm whales (cosmopolitan)
******Family Platanistidae: (2 species) South Asian river dolphin (Southern Asia)
******Family Iniidae
Iniidae is a family of river dolphins containing one living genus, ''Inia'', and four extinct genera. The extant genus inhabits the river basins of South America, but the family formerly had a wider presence across the Atlantic Ocean.
Iniidae a ...
: (1-4 species) Amazon River dolphin (South America)
******Family Pontoporiidae: (1 species) La Plata River dolphin (South America)
******Family Lipotidae
Lipotidae is a family of river dolphins containing the possibly extinct baiji of China and the fossil genus ''Parapontoporia'' from the Late Miocene and Pliocene of the Pacific coast of North America. The genus '' Prolipotes'', which is based on ...
: baiji
******Family Ziphiidae
Beaked whales (systematic name Ziphiidae) are a family of cetaceans noted as being one of the least known groups of mammals because of their deep-sea habitat and apparent low abundance. Only three or four of the 24 species are reasonably well-kn ...
: (24 species) beaked whales (cosmopolitan)
Standardized textbook classification
A somewhat standardized classification system has been adopted by most current mammalogy classroom textbooks. The following taxonomy of extant and recently extinct mammals is taken from the 6th edition of Vaughan's ''Mammalogy''.[ This approach emphasizes an initial split between egg-laying prototherians and live-bearing therians. The therians are further divided into the marsupial Metatheria and the "placental" Eutheria. No attempt is made in this classification to further distinguish among the orders within these subclasses and infraclasses. This system also makes no note of the position of entirely fossil groups.
In this and later taxonomies, families are merely listed under the order to which they belong. More detailed relationships among families is presented in the article of each order.
]
Subclass
Prototheria
Prototheria (; from Greek πρώτος, ''prōtos'', first, + θήρ, ''thēr'', wild animal) is a subclass to which the orders Monotremata, Morganucodonta, Docodonta, Triconodonta and Multituberculata have been assigned, although the validity ...
*Order Monotremata
**Family Tachyglossidae (echidnas)
**Family Ornithorhynchidae
The Ornithorhynchidae are one of the two extant families in the order Monotremata, and contain the platypus and its extinct relatives. The other family is the Tachyglossidae, or echidnas. Within the Ornithorhynchidae are the genera '' Monotrem ...
(platypuses)
Subclass
Theria
Theria (; Greek: , wild beast) is a subclass of mammals amongst the Theriiformes. Theria includes the eutherians (including the placental mammals) and the metatherians (including the marsupials) but excludes the egg-laying monotremes.
Ch ...
*Infraclass Metatheria
Metatheria is a mammalian clade that includes all mammals more closely related to marsupials than to placentals. First proposed by Thomas Henry Huxley in 1880, it is a more inclusive group than the marsupials; it contains all marsupials as wel ...
(marsupials and their nearest ancestors)
**Order Didelphimorphia
***Family Didelphidae (opossums, etc.)
**Order Paucituberculata
Paucituberculata is an order of South American marsupials. Although currently represented only by the seven living species of shrew opossums, this order was formerly much more diverse, with more than 60 extinct species named from the fossil rec ...
***Family Caenolestidae
The family Caenolestidae contains the seven surviving species of shrew opossum: small, shrew-like marsupials that are confined to the Andes mountains of South America. The order is thought to have diverged from the ancestral marsupial line very e ...
(shrew opossums)
**Order Microbiotheria
Microbiotheria is an australidelphian marsupial order that encompasses two families, Microbiotheriidae and Woodburnodontidae, and is represented by only one extant species, the monito del monte, and a number of extinct species known from fossi ...
***Family Microbiotheriidae
Microbiotheriidae is a family of australidelphian marsupials represented by only one extant species, the monito del monte, and a number of extinct species known from fossils in South America, Western Antarctica, and northeastern Australia.
Micr ...
(monitos del monte)
**Order Dasyuromorphia
Dasyuromorphia (, meaning "hairy tail" in Greek) is an order comprising most of the Australian carnivorous marsupials, including quolls, dunnarts, the numbat, the Tasmanian devil, and the thylacine. In Australia, the exceptions include the omn ...
(most carnivorous marsupials)
***Family Thylacinidae
Thylacinidae is an extinct family of carnivorous, superficially dog-like marsupials from the order Dasyuromorphia. The only species to survive into modern times was the thylacine (''Thylacinus cynocephalus''), which became extinct in 1936.
The ...
(Tasmanian tigers)
***Family Myrmecobiidae
The numbat (''Myrmecobius fasciatus''), also known as the noombat or walpurti, is an insectivorous marsupial. It is diurnal and its diet consists almost exclusively of termites.
The species was once widespread across southern Australia, but ...
(numbats)
***Family Dasyuridae
The Dasyuridae are a family of marsupials native to Australia and New Guinea, including 71 extant species divided into 17 genera. Many are small and mouse-like or shrew-like, giving some of them the name marsupial mice or marsupial shrews, but th ...
(Tasmanian devils, quolls, dunnarts, planigale, etc.)
**Order Peramelemorphia
The order Peramelemorphia includes the bandicoots and bilbies; it equates approximately to the mainstream of marsupial omnivores. All members of the order are endemic to the twin land masses of Australia-New Guinea and most have the character ...
(bandicoots, bilbies, etc.)
***Family Peramelidae
The marsupial family Peramelidae contains all of the extant bandicoots. They are found throughout Australia and New Guinea, with at least some species living in every available habitat, from rainforest to desert. Four fossil peramelids are descri ...
(bandicoots, echymiperas)
***Family †Chaeropodidae
''Chaeropus'', known as the pig-footed bandicoots, is a genus of small mammals that became extinct during the 20th century. They were unique marsupials, of the order Peramelemorphia (bandicoots and bilbies), with unusually thin legs, yet were ab ...
(pig-footed bandicoot)
**Order Notoryctemorphia
Notoryctidae is a family of mammals, allying several extant and fossil species of Australia.
The group appear to have diverged from other marsupials at an early stage and are highly specialised to foraging through loose sand; the unusual feature ...
(marsupial moles)
***Family Notoryctidae
Notoryctidae is a family of mammals, allying several extant and fossil species of Australia.
The group appear to have diverged from other marsupials at an early stage and are highly specialised to foraging through loose sand; the unusual feature ...
**Order Diprotodontia
Diprotodontia (, from Greek "two forward teeth") is the largest extant order of marsupials, with about 155 species, including the kangaroos, wallabies, possums, koala, wombats, and many others. Extinct diprotodonts include the hippopotamus-sized ...
***Family Phascolarctidae
The Phascolarctidae (''φάσκωλος (phaskolos)'' - pouch or bag, ''ἄρκτος (arktos)'' - bear, from the Greek ''phascolos'' + ''arctos'' meaning pouched bear) is a family of marsupials of the order Diprotodontia, consisting of only one ...
(koalas)
***Family Vombatidae (wombats)
***Family Phalangeridae
The Phalangeridae are a family of mostly nocturnal marsupials native to Australia, New Guinea, and Eastern Indonesia, including the cuscuses, brushtail possums, and their close relatives. Considered a type of possum, most species are arboreal, ...
(brushtail possums and cuscuses)
***Family Potoroidae
Potoroidae is a family of marsupials, small Australian animals known as bettongs, potoroos, and rat-kangaroos. All are rabbit-sized, brown, jumping marsupials and resemble a large rodent or a very small wallaby.
Taxonomy
The potoroids are s ...
(bettongs, potoroos and rat kangaroos)
***Family Macropodidae
Macropodidae is a family of marsupials that includes kangaroos, wallabies, tree-kangaroos, wallaroos, pademelons, quokkas, and several other groups. These genera are allied to the suborder Macropodiformes, containing other macropods, and ar ...
(kangaroos, wallabies, etc.)
***Family Burramyidae
The pygmy possums are a family of small possums that together form the marsupial family Burramyidae. The five extant species of pygmy possum are grouped into two genera. Four of the species are endemic to Australia, with one species also co-occu ...
(pygmy possums)
***Family Pseudocheiridae
Pseudocheiridae is a family of arboreal marsupials containing 17 extant species of ringtailed possums and close relatives. They are found in forested areas and shrublands throughout Australia and New Guinea.
Characteristics
Physically, they app ...
(ringtailed possums, etc.)
***Family Petauridae
Petauridae is a family of possums containing 13 species: four species of trioks and striped possum (genus ''Dactylopsila''), eight species of wrist-winged glider (genus ''Petaurus''), and Leadbeater's possum (''Gymnobelideus leadbeateri''), whic ...
(striped possum
The striped possum or common striped possum (''Dactylopsila trivirgata'') is a member of the marsupial family Petauridae. it is found mainly in New Guinea. The species is black with three white stripes running head to tail, and its head has whi ...
, Leadbeater's possum
Leadbeater's possum (''Gymnobelideus leadbeateri'') is a critically endangered possum largely restricted to small pockets of alpine ash, mountain ash, and snow gum forests in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia, north-east of Melbou ...
, yellow-bellied glider
The yellow-bellied glider (''Petaurus australis''), also known as the fluffy glider, is an arboreal and nocturnal gliding possum that lives in native eucalypt forests in eastern Australia, from northern Queensland south to Victoria.
Habitat
...
, sugar glider
The sugar glider (''Petaurus breviceps'') is a small, omnivorous, arboreal, and nocturnal gliding possum belonging to the marsupial infraclass. The common name refers to its predilection for sugary foods such as sap and nectar and its abili ...
, mahogany glider and squirrel glider
The squirrel glider (''Petaurus norfolcensis'') is a nocturnal gliding possum. The squirrel glider is one of the wrist-winged gliders of the genus ''Petaurus''.
Habitat
This species' home range extends from Bordertown near the South Australia ...
)
***Family Tarsipedidae
The honey possum or noolbenger (''Tarsipes rostratus''), is a tiny species of marsupial that feeds on the nectar and pollen of a diverse range of flowering plants. Found in southwest Australia, it is an important pollinator for such plants as '' ...
(honey possum)
***Family Acrobatidae
The Acrobatidae are a small family of flying and gliding animals, gliding marsupials containing two genera, each with a single species, the feathertail glider (''Acrobates pygmaeus'') from Australia and feather-tailed possum (''Distoechurus penn ...
(feathertail glider
The feathertail glider (''Acrobates pygmaeus''), also known as the pygmy gliding possum, pygmy glider, pygmy phalanger, flying phalanger and flying mouse, is a species of marsupial native to eastern Australia. It is the world's smallest gliding ...
and feather-tailed possum
The feather-tailed possum (''Distoechurus pennatus'') is a species of marsupial in the family Acrobatidae. It is found in West Papua and Papua New Guinea. It is not to be confused with the feathertail glider, the only other species in the famil ...
)
***Family Hypsiprymnodontidae
The Hypsiprymnodontidae are a family of macropods, one of two families containing animals commonly referred to as rat-kangaroos. The single known extant genus and species in this family, the musky rat-kangaroo, ''Hypsiprymnodon moschatus'', oc ...
(musky rat kangaroo)
*Infraclass Eutheria
Eutheria (; from Greek , 'good, right' and , 'beast'; ) is the clade consisting of all therian mammals that are more closely related to placentals than to marsupials.
Eutherians are distinguished from noneutherians by various phenotypic tra ...
**Order Afrosoricida
The order Afrosoricida (a Latin-Greek compound name which means "looking like African shrews") contains the golden moles of Southern Africa, the otter shrews of equatorial Africa and the tenrecs of Madagascar. These three families of small mamma ...
***Family Tenrecidae (tenrecs)
***Family Chrysochloridae
Golden moles are small insectivorous burrowing mammals endemic to Sub-Saharan Africa. They comprise the family Chrysochloridae and as such they are taxonomically distinct from the true moles, family Talpidae, and other mole-like families, all ...
(golden moles)
**Order Macroscelidea
***Family Macroscelididae (elephant-shrews
**Order Tubulidentata
Orycteropodidae is a family of afrotherian mammals. Although there are many fossil species, the only species surviving today is the aardvark, ''Orycteropus afer''. Orycteropodidae is recognized as the only family within the order Tubulidentata ...
***Family Orycteropodidae
Orycteropodidae is a family of afrotherian mammals. Although there are many fossil species, the only species surviving today is the aardvark, ''Orycteropus afer''. Orycteropodidae is recognized as the only family within the order Tubulidentata ...
(aardvark)
**Order Proboscidea
***Family Elephantidae
Elephantidae is a family of large, herbivorous proboscidean mammals collectively called elephants and mammoths. These are terrestrial large mammals with a snout modified into a trunk and teeth modified into tusks. Most genera and species in the ...
(elephants)
**Order Sirenia
The Sirenia (), commonly referred to as sea-cows or sirenians, are an order of fully aquatic, herbivorous mammals that inhabit swamps, rivers, estuaries, marine wetlands, and coastal marine waters. The Sirenia currently comprise two distinct ...
***Family Dugongidae
Dugongidae is a family in the order of Sirenia. The family has one surviving species, the dugong (''Dugong dugon''), one recently extinct species, Steller's sea cow (''Hydrodamalis gigas''), and a number of extinct genera known from fossil r ...
(dugongs, sea cows)
***Family Trichechidae
Trichechidae is a family of sirenians that includes all living manatees and several extinct genera.
Systematics
TRICHECHIDAE
*MiosireninaeM. Voss. 2014. On the invalidity of Halitherium schinzii Kaup, 1838 (Mammalia, Sirenia), with comments o ...
(manatees)
**Order Hyracoidea
Hyraxes (), also called dassies, are small, thickset, herbivorous mammals in the order Hyracoidea. Hyraxes are well-furred, rotund animals with short tails. Typically, they measure between long and weigh between . They are superficially simila ...
***Family Procaviidae
Hyraxes (), also called dassies, are small, thickset, herbivorous mammals in the order Hyracoidea. Hyraxes are well-furred, rotund animals with short tails. Typically, they measure between long and weigh between . They are superficially simi ...
(hyraxes)
**Order Pilosa
The order Pilosa is a clade of xenarthran placental mammals, native to the Americas. It includes the anteaters and sloths (which includes the extinct ground sloths). The name comes from the Latin word for "hairy".
Origins and taxonomy
The bi ...
***Family Bradypodidae (three-toed tree sloths)
***Family Megalonychidae
Megalonychidae is an extinct family of sloths including the extinct ''Megalonyx''. Megalonychids first appeared in the early Oligocene, about 35 million years (Ma) ago, in southern Argentina (Patagonia). There is actually one possible find datin ...
(two-toed tree sloths)
***Family Myrmecophagidae
The Myrmecophagidae are a family of anteaters, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek words for 'ant' and 'eat' (''myrmeco-'' and '). Two genera and three species are in the family, consisting of the giant anteater, and the tamanduas. T ...
(tamanduas and giant anteater)
***Family Cyclopedidae
The Cyclopedidae is a family of anteaters that includes the silky anteater
The silky anteater, also known as the pygmy anteater, has traditionally been considered a single species of anteater, ''Cyclopes didactylus'', in the genus ''Cyclopes ...
(silky anteater)
**Order Cingulata
Cingulata, part of the superorder Xenarthra, is an order of armored New World placental mammals. Dasypodids and chlamyphorids, the armadillos, are the only surviving families in the order. Two groups of cingulates much larger than extant ar ...
***Family Dasypodidae
Dasypodidae is a family of mostly extinct genera of armadillos. One genus, '' Dasypus'', is extant, with at least seven living species.
__TOC__
Classification
Below is a taxonomy of armadillos in this family.
Family Dasypodidae
*† Genus ...
(armadillos)
**Order Dermoptera
***Family Cynocephalidae (colugos)
**Order Scandentia
***Family Tupaiidae
Tupaiidae is one of two families of treeshrews, the other family being Ptilocercidae. The family contains three living genera and 19 living species. The family name derives from ''tupai'', the Malay word for treeshrew and also for squirrel which ...
(tree shrews)
***Family Ptilocercidae (pen-tailed treeshrew![Noctilio albiventris](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Noctilio_albiventris.jpg)
![Acerodon celebensis](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/Acerodon_celebensis.JPG)
![Cynopterus brachyotis](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ab/Cynopterus_brachyotis.jpg)
![Epomophorus wahlbergi1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Epomophorus_wahlbergi1.jpg)
![EpomophorusFranquetiFord](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/EpomophorusFranquetiFord.jpg)
**Order Primates
***Family Cheirogaleidae
The Cheirogaleidae are the family of strepsirrhine primates containing the various dwarf and mouse lemurs. Like all other lemurs, cheirogaleids live exclusively on the island of Madagascar.
Characteristics
Cheirogaleids are smaller than the ...
(dwarf lemurs, mouse lemurs)
***Family Lemuridae
Lemuridae is a family of strepsirrhine primates native to Madagascar and the Comoros. They are represented by the Lemuriformes in Madagascar with one of the highest concentration of the lemurs. One of five families commonly known as lemurs. Thes ...
(lemurs)
***Family Lepilemuridae
The sportive lemurs are the medium-sized primates that make up the family Lepilemuridae. The family consists of only one extant genus, ''Lepilemur''. They are closely related to the other lemurs and exclusively live on the island of Madagascar. ...
(sportive lemurs)
***Family Indriidae
The Indriidae (sometimes incorrectly spelled Indridae) are a family of strepsirrhine primates. They are medium- to large-sized lemurs, with only four teeth in the toothcomb instead of the usual six. Indriids, like all lemurs, live exclusively on ...
(wooly lemurs, sifakas)
***Family Daubentoniidae
''Daubentonia'' is the sole genus of the Daubentoniidae, a family of lemuroid primate native to much of Madagascar.
The aye-aye ''(Daubentonia madagascariensis)'' is the only extant member. However, a second species known as the giant aye-aye ...
(aye-aye)
***Family Lorisidae
Lorisidae (or sometimes Loridae) is a family of strepsirrhine primates. The lorisids are all slim arboreal animals and comprise the lorises, pottos and angwantibos. Lorisids live in tropical, central Africa as well as in south and southeast Asia. ...
(lorises)
***Family Galagidae
Galagos , also known as bush babies, or ''nagapies'' (meaning "night monkeys" in Afrikaans), are small nocturnal primates native to continental, sub-Sahara Africa, and make up the family Galagidae (also sometimes called Galagonidae). They are ...
(bushbabies, galagos)
***Family Tarsiidae (tarsiers)
***Family Cebidae (marmosets, tamarins, capuchins, squirrel monkeys)
***Family Aotidae
Night monkeys, also known as owl monkeys or douroucoulis (), are nocturnal New World monkeys of the genus ''Aotus'', the only member of the family Aotidae (). The genus comprises eleven species which are found across Panama and much of South Ame ...
(night monkeys)
***Family Pitheciidae
The Pitheciidae () are one of the five families of New World monkeys now recognised. Formerly, they were included in the family Atelidae. The family includes the titis, saki monkeys and uakaris. Most species are native to the Amazon region ...
(titis, uacaris, sakis)
***Family Atelidae
The Atelidae are one of the five family (biology), families of New World monkeys now recognised. It was formerly included in the family Cebidae. Atelids are generally larger monkeys; the family includes the howler monkey, howler, spider monkey, ...
(howlers, spider monkeys, wooly monkeys)
***Family Cercopithecidae (Old World monkeys)
***Family Hylobatidae
Gibbons () are apes in the family Hylobatidae (). The family historically contained one genus, but now is split into four extant genera and 20 species. Gibbons live in subtropical and tropical rainforest from eastern Bangladesh to Northeast India ...
(gibbons)
***Family Hominidae
The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the ea ...
(apes, human)
**Order Rodentia
Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are nat ...
***Family Aplodontiidae
The family Aplodontiidae also known as Aplodontidae, Haplodontiidae or Haploodontini is traditionally classified as the sole extant family of the suborder Protrogomorpha. It may be the sister family of the Sciuridae.
There are fossils from the ...
(sewellel or mountain beaver)
***Family Sciuridae
Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels. Squ ...
(squirrels)
***Family Gliridae (dormice)
***Family Castoridae
The family Castoridae contains the two living species of beavers and their fossil relatives. A highly diverse group of rodents within this family once roamed the earth, but only a single genus is extant today, '' Castor''.
Characteristics
Ca ...
(beavers)
***Family Heteromyidae
Heteromyidae is a family of rodents consisting of kangaroo rats, kangaroo mice, pocket mice and spiny pocket mice. Most heteromyids live in complex burrows within the deserts and grasslands of western North America, though species within th ...
(kangaroo rats, pocket mice)
***Family Geomyidae (pocket gophers)
***Family Dipodidae
Jerboas (from ar, جربوع ') are hopping desert rodents found throughout North Africa and Asia, and are members of the family Dipodidae. They tend to live in hot deserts.
When chased, jerboas can run at up to . Some species are preyed on b ...
(jerboas, birch mice, jumping mice)
***Family Platacanthomyidae
The rodent family Platacanthomyidae, or Oriental dormice, includes the spiny dormice and the Chinese pygmy dormice. In spite of their appearance, these animals are not true dormice, but are part of the large and complex superfamily Muroidea. ...
(tree mice)
***Family Spalacidae
The Spalacidae, or spalacids, are a family of rodents in the large and complex superfamily Muroidea. They are native to eastern Asia, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, and southeastern Europe. It includes the blind mole-rats, bamboo rats, m ...
(zokors, bamboo rats, mole rats)
***Family Calomyscidae
200px, right
200px, Mouse-like hamster using its tail for balance while standing on a branch (a feat difficult for hamsters)
Mouse-like hamsters are a group of small rodents found in Syria, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, and Pakis ...
(calomyscuses)
***Family Nesomyidae
The Nesomyidae are a family of African rodents in the large and complex superfamily Muroidea. It includes several subfamilies, all of which are native to either continental Africa or to Madagascar. Included in this family are Malagasy rodents, ...
(pouched rats and mice, climbing and fat mice, etc.)
***Family Cricetidae
The Cricetidae are a family of rodents in the large and complex superfamily Muroidea. It includes true hamsters, voles, lemmings, muskrats, and New World rats and mice. At almost 608 species, it is the second-largest family of mammals, and has m ...
(voles, hamsters, New World rats and mice
***Family Muridae
The Muridae, or murids, are the largest family of rodents and of mammals, containing approximately 1,383 species, including many species of mice, rats, and gerbils found naturally throughout Eurasia, Africa, and Australia.
The name Muridae come ...
(rats, mice)
***Family Anomaluridae (scaily-tailed flying squirrels)
***Family Pedetidae
The Pedetidae are a family of mammals from the rodent order. The two living species, the springhares, are distributed throughout much of southern Africa and also around Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Fossils have been found as far north as Turkey.M ...
(springhaas, springhares)
***Family Ctenodactylidae (gundis)
***Family Diatomyidae
Diatomyidae is a family of hystricomorph rodents. It is represented by a single living species, ''Laonastes aenigmamus,'' native to Laos in Southeast Asia. Fossil species are known from the Oligocene and Miocene of Asia and eastern Europe.
"Laz ...
(kha-nyous or Laotian rock rat)
***Family Bathyergidae (mole-rats)
***Family Hystricidae (African and Asian porcupines)
***Family Petromuridae
Petromuridae is a family of hystricognath rodents that contains the dassie rat ''(Petromus typicus)'' of southwestern Africa, the only extant member of this group.
The genus ''Petromus
''Petromus'' is a genus of hystricognath rodents that co ...
(dassie rat)
***Family Thryonomyidae
Thryonomyidae is a family of hystricognath rodents that contains the cane rats ''(Thryomys)'' found throughout sub-Saharan Africa, and a number of fossil genera.
Taxonomy
Thryonomyidae was formerly more diverse and widespread, with fossil relati ...
(can rats)
***Family Erethizontidae (bristle-spined rat and New World porcupines)
***Family Chinchillidae
The family Chinchillidae is in the order Rodentia and consists of the chinchillas, the viscachas, and their fossil relatives. This family is restricted to southern and western South America, mostly living in mountainous regions of the Andes but ...
(chinchillas, vizcachas)
***Family Dinomyidae
The Dinomyidae are a family of South American hystricognath rodents: the dinomyids were once a very speciose group, but now contains only a single living species, the pacarana. Several of the extinct dinomyids were among the largest rodents know ...
(pacarana)
***Family Caviidae
Caviidae, the cavy family, is composed of rodents native to South America and includes the domestic guinea pig, wild cavies, and the largest living rodent, the capybara. They are found across South America in open areas from moist savanna to tho ...
(cuis, guinea-pigs, cavies, maras, capybaras)
***Family Dasyproctidae
Dasyproctidae is a family of large South American rodents, comprising the agoutis and acouchis. Their fur is a reddish or dark colour above, with a paler underside. They are herbivorous, often feeding on ripe fruit that falls from trees. They liv ...
(agoutis, acouchis)
***Family Cuniculidae (pacas)
***Family Ctenomyidae
A tuco-tuco is a neotropical rodent in the family Ctenomyidae.Parada, A., G. D’Elia, C.J. Bidau, and E.P. Lessa. 2011. Species Groups and the Evolutionary Diversification of Tuco-Tucos, genus ''Ctenomys'' (Rodentia: Ctenomyidae). ''Journal of M ...
(tuco-tucos)
***Family Octodontidae
Octodontidae is a family of rodents, restricted to southwestern South America. Fourteen species of octodontid are recognised, arranged in seven genera. The best known species is the common degu, ''Octodon degus''.
Octodontids are medium-sized ...
(degus, rock rats, vizcacha-rats)
***Family Abrocomidae (chinchilla rats)
***Family Echimyidae
Echimyidae is the family of neotropical spiny rats and their fossil relatives. This is the most species-rich family of hystricognath rodents. It is probably also the most ecologically diverse, with members ranging from fully arboreal to terr ...
(spiny rats, tree rats, hutias, & coypu)
***Family †Heptaxodontidae
Heptaxodontidae, rarely called giant hutia, is an extinct family (taxonomy), family of large rodents known from fossil and subfossil material found in the West Indies. One species, ''Blunt-toothed giant hutia, Amblyrhiza inundata'', is estimated ...
(giant hutias and key mice)
**Order Lagomorpha
The lagomorphs are the members of the taxonomic order Lagomorpha, of which there are two living families: the Leporidae (hares and rabbits) and the Ochotonidae ( pikas). The name of the order is derived from the Ancient Greek ''lagos'' (λαγ ...
***Family Ochotonidae (pikas)
***Family †Prolagidae
''Prolagus'' is an extinct genus of pika within the order Lagomorpha. Over 20 species of ''Prolagus'' have been named, beginning in the Early Miocene in Europe 20 million years ago, where it ranged widely for most of the epoch; by the end of the ...
(Sardinian pika)
***Family Leporidae
Leporidae is the family of rabbits and hares, containing over 60 species of extant mammals in all. The Latin word ''Leporidae'' means "those that resemble ''lepus''" (hare). Together with the pikas, the Leporidae constitute the mammalian order ...
(rabbits)
**Order Eulipotyphla
Eulipotyphla (, which means "truly fat and blind") is an order of mammals suggested by molecular methods of phylogenetic reconstruction, which includes the laurasiatherian members of the now-invalid polyphyletic order Lipotyphla, but not the ...
***Family Erinaceidae (hedgehogs, gymnures)
***Family †Nesophontidae
''Nesophontes'', sometimes called West Indies shrews, is the sole genus of the extinct, monotypic mammal family Nesophontidae in the order Eulipotyphla. These animals were small insectivores, about 5 to 15 cm long, with a long slender snout ...
(nesophontes)
***Family Solenodontidae
Solenodons (from el, τέλειος , 'channel' or 'pipe' and el, ὀδούς , 'tooth') are venomous, nocturnal, burrowing, insectivorous mammals belonging to the family Solenodontidae . The two living solenodon species are the Cuban solen ...
(solenodons, alamiquis)
***Family Soricidae (shrews)
***Family Talpidae
The family Talpidae () includes the moles (some of whom are called shrew moles and desmans) who are small insectivorous mammals of the order Eulipotyphla. Talpids are all digging animals to various degrees: moles are completely subterranean ...
(moles, desmans)
**Order Chiroptera
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most bir ...
***Family Pteropodidae (Old World fruit bats, flying foxes)
***Family Rhinopomatidae (mouse-tailed bats)
***Family Craseonycteridae (hog-nosed or bumblebee bat)
***Family Megadermatidae
Megadermatidae, or false vampire bats, are a family of bats found from central Africa, eastwards through southern Asia, and into Australia. They are relatively large bats, ranging from 6.5 cm to 14 cm in head-body length. They have la ...
(false vampire bats)
***Family Rhinolophidae (horseshoe bats)
***Family Emballonuridae
Emballonuridae is a family of microbats, many of which are referred to as sac-winged or sheath-tailed bats. They are widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions around the world. The earliest fossil records are from the Eocene.
Descr ...
(sac-winged bats)
***Family Nycteridae (slit-faced bats)
***Family Myzopodidae
''Myzopoda'', which has two described species, is the only genus in the bat family Myzopodidae. Myzopodidae is unique as the only family of bats presently endemic to Madagascar. However, fossil discoveries indicate that the family has an ancie ...
(sucker-footed bats)
***Family Mystacinidae
__NOTOC__
Mystacinidae is a family of unusual bats, the New Zealand short-tailed bats. There is one living genus, '' Mystacina'', with two species, one of which could have possibly become extinct in the 1960s. They are medium-sized bats, about in ...
(New Zealand short-tailed bats)
***Family Thyropteridae
Disk-winged bats are a small group of bats of the family Thyropteridae and genus Thyroptera. They are found in Central and South America, usually in moist tropical rain forests. It is a very small family, consisting of a single genus with five e ...
(disk-winged bats)
***Family Furipteridae
Furipteridae is family of bats, allying two genera of single species, '' Amorphochilus schnablii'' (smoky bat) and the type '' Furipterus horrens'' (thumbless bat). They are found in Central and South America and are closely related to the bats ...
(smokey bat and thumbless bat)
***Family Noctilionidae (bulldog bats)
***Family Mormoopidae
The family Mormoopidae contains bats known generally as mustached bats, ghost-faced bats, and naked-backed bats. They are found in the Americas from the Southwestern United States to Southeastern Brazil.
They are distinguished by the presenc ...
(mustached and ghost-faced bats)
***Family Phyllostomidae (New World leaf-nosed bats)
***Family Natalidae
The family Natalidae, or funnel-eared bats, are found from Mexico to Brazil and the Caribbean islands. The family has three genera, '' Chilonatalus'', '' Natalus'' and '' Nyctiellus''. They are slender bats with unusually long tails and, as th ...
(funnel-eared bats)
***Family Molossidae (free-tailed bats)
***Family Vespertilionidae
Vespertilionidae is a family of microbats, of the order Chiroptera, flying, insect-eating mammals variously described as the common, vesper, or simple nosed bats. The vespertilionid family is the most diverse and widely distributed of bat familie ...
(evening bats, common bats)
***Family Miniopteridae
''Miniopterus'', known as the bent-winged or long winged bats, is the sole genus of the family Miniopteridae. They are small flying insectivorous mammals, micro-bats of the order Chiroptera, with wings over twice the length of the body. The genus ...
(bent-winged or long-fingered bats)
**Order Pholidota
Pangolins, sometimes known as scaly anteaters, are mammals of the order Pholidota (, from Ancient Greek ϕολιδωτός – "clad in scales"). The one extant family, the Manidae, has three genera: ''Manis'', ''Phataginus'', and ''Smutsia'' ...
***Family Manidae (pangolins)
**Order Carnivora
Carnivora is a Clade, monophyletic order of Placentalia, placental mammals consisting of the most recent common ancestor of all felidae, cat-like and canidae, dog-like animals, and all descendants of that ancestor. Members of this group are f ...
***Family Felidae
Felidae () is the family of mammals in the order Carnivora colloquially referred to as cats, and constitutes a clade. A member of this family is also called a felid (). The term "cat" refers both to felids in general and specifically to the ...
(cats)
***Family Viverridae
Viverridae is a family (biology), family of small to medium-sized, feliform mammals. The viverrids () comprise 33 species placed in 14 genera. This family was named and first described by John Edward Gray in 1821. Viverrids occur all over Africa, ...
(civets, genets)
***Family Eupleridae
Eupleridae is a family of carnivorans endemic to Madagascar and comprising 10 known living species in seven genera, commonly known as euplerids, Malagasy mongooses or Malagasy carnivorans. The best known species is the fossa (''Cryptoproct ...
(falanouc, fossa, Madagascaran mongooses)
***Family Nandiniidae (African palm civet)
***Family Herpestidae
A mongoose is a small terrestrial carnivorous mammal belonging to the family Herpestidae. This family is currently split into two subfamilies, the Herpestinae and the Mungotinae. The Herpestinae comprises 23 living species that are native to so ...
(mongooses)
***Family Hyaenidae (hyaenas, aardwolf)
***Family Canidae (wolves, foxes, jackals)
***Family Ursidae
Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Nort ...
(bears, giant panda)
***Family Odobenidae
Odobenidae is a family of pinnipeds. The only living species is the walrus (''Odobenus rosmarus''). In the past, however, the group was much more diverse, and includes more than a dozen fossil genera.
Taxonomy
All genera, except ''Odobenus'', ...
(walrus)
***Family Otariidae (eared seals, fur seals, sea lions)
***Family Phocidae (earless seals)
***Family Mustelidae
The Mustelidae (; from Latin ''mustela'', weasel) are a family of carnivorous mammals, including weasels, badgers, otters, ferrets, martens, minks and wolverines, among others. Mustelids () are a diverse group and form the largest family in ...
(weasels, badgers, otters)
***Family Procyonidae (raccoons, ringtails, coatis)
***Family Ailuridae
Ailuridae is a family in the mammal order Carnivora. The family consists of the red panda (the sole living representative) and its extinct relatives.
Georges Cuvier first described ''Ailurus'' as belonging to the raccoon family in 1825; this cl ...
(red panda)
**Order Perissodactyla
***Family Equidae
Equidae (sometimes known as the horse family) is the taxonomic family of horses and related animals, including the extant horses, asses, and zebras, and many other species known only from fossils. All extant species are in the genus '' Equus'', ...
(horses, asses, zebras)
***Family Tapiridae
Tapirs ( ) are large, herbivorous mammals belonging to the family Tapiridae. They are similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile nose trunk. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South and Central America, with one species inhabi ...
(tapirs)
***Family Rhinocerotidae
A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species ...
(rhinoceroses)
**Order Artiodactyla
The even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla , ) are ungulates—hoofed animals—which bear weight equally on two (an even number) of their five toes: the third and fourth. The other three toes are either present, absent, vestigial, or pointing poster ...
***Family Suidae (hogs, pigs)
***Family Tayassuidae (peccaries)
***Family Hippopotamidae
Hippopotamidae is a family of stout, naked-skinned, and semiaquatic artiodactyl mammals, possessing three-chambered stomachs and walking on four toes on each foot. While they resemble pigs physiologically, their closest living relatives are t ...
(hippopotamuses)
***Family Camelidae
Camelids are members of the biological family Camelidae, the only currently living family in the suborder Tylopoda. The seven extant members of this group are: dromedary camels, Bactrian camels, wild Bactrian camels, llamas, alpacas, vicuñas, ...
(camels, vicunas, guanacos, llamas)
***Family Tragulidae
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often v ...
(chevrotains and mouse deer)
***Family Moschidae
Moschidae is a family of pecoran even-toed ungulates, containing the musk deer (''Moschus'') and its extinct relatives. They are characterized by long 'saber teeth' instead of horns, antlers or ossicones, modest size (''Moschus'' only reaches ; ...
(musk deer)
***Family Cervidae
Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...
(deer)
***Family Antilocapridae
The Antilocapridae are a family of artiodactyls endemic to North America. Their closest extant relatives are the giraffids with which they comprise the superfamily Giraffoidea. Only one species, the pronghorn (''Antilocapra americana''), is ...
(pronghorn)
***Family Giraffidae
The Giraffidae are a family of ruminant artiodactyl mammals that share a common ancestor with deer and bovids. This family, once a diverse group spread throughout Eurasia and Africa, presently comprises only two extant genera, the giraffe (one ...
(giraffe and okapi)
***Family Bovidae
The Bovidae comprise the biological family of cloven-hoofed, ruminant mammals that includes cattle, bison, buffalo, antelopes, and caprines. A member of this family is called a bovid. With 143 extant species and 300 known extinct species, ...
(antelope, bison, cattle, duikers, goats, sheep, etc.)
**Order Cetacea
Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively carnivorous diet. They propel them ...
***Family Balaenidae (right whales)
***Family Balaenopteridae (rorquals)
***Family Eschrichtiidae (gray whales
***Family Cetotheriidae
Cetotheriidae is a family of baleen whales (parvorder Mysticeti). The family is known to have existed from the Late Oligocene to the Early Pleistocene before going extinct. Although some phylogenetic studies conducted by recovered the livin ...
(pygmy right whale)
***Family Delphinidae
Oceanic dolphins or Delphinidae are a widely distributed family of dolphins that live in the sea. Close to forty extant species are recognised. They include several big species whose common names contain "whale" rather than "dolphin", such as the ...
(ocean dolphins)
***Family Monodontidae
The cetacean family Monodontidae comprises two living whale species, the narwhal and the beluga whale and at least four extinct species, known from the fossil record. Beluga and Narwhal are native to coastal regions and pack ice around the Arctic ...
(narwhal and beluga)
***Family Phocoenidae
Porpoises are a group of fully aquatic marine mammals, all of which are classified under the family Phocoenidae, parvorder Odontoceti (toothed whales). Although similar in appearance to dolphins, they are more closely related to narwhals ...
(porpoises)
***Family Physeteridae (sperm whales)
***Family Platanistidae (Ganges and Indus river dolphins)
***Family Iniidae
Iniidae is a family of river dolphins containing one living genus, ''Inia'', and four extinct genera. The extant genus inhabits the river basins of South America, but the family formerly had a wider presence across the Atlantic Ocean.
Iniidae a ...
(baiji, franciscana, and Amazon river dolphins)
***Family Ziphiidae
Beaked whales (systematic name Ziphiidae) are a family of cetaceans noted as being one of the least known groups of mammals because of their deep-sea habitat and apparent low abundance. Only three or four of the 24 species are reasonably well-kn ...
(beaked whales)
McKenna/Bell classification
In 1997, the classification of mammals was revised by Malcolm C. McKenna and Susan K. Bell. The ''Classification of Mammals Above the species level'', here referred to as the "McKenna/Bell classification", is a comprehensive work on the systematics, relationships, and occurrences of all mammal taxa, living and extinct, down through the rank of genus. The authors worked together as paleontologists
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of foss ...
at the American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...
, New York. McKenna inherited the project from Simpson and, with Bell, constructed a completely updated hierarchical system, covering living and extinct taxa that reflects the historical genealogy of Mammalia.
The McKenna/Bell hierarchical listing of all of the terms used for mammal groups above the species includes extinct mammals as well as modern groups, and introduces some fine distinctions such as legions and sublegions and ranks which fall between classes and orders that are likely to be glossed over by the layman.
Click on the highlighted link for
table comparing the traditional and the new McKenna/Bell classifications of mammals
Extinct
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
groups are represented by †.
Subclass
Prototheria
Prototheria (; from Greek πρώτος, ''prōtos'', first, + θήρ, ''thēr'', wild animal) is a subclass to which the orders Monotremata, Morganucodonta, Docodonta, Triconodonta and Multituberculata have been assigned, although the validity ...
(monotremes)
*Order Platypoda
The Ornithorhynchidae are one of the two extant families in the order Monotremata, and contain the platypus and its extinct relatives. The other family is the Tachyglossidae, or echidnas. Within the Ornithorhynchidae are the genera '' Monotre ...
: platypuses
**Family Ornithorhynchidae
The Ornithorhynchidae are one of the two extant families in the order Monotremata, and contain the platypus and its extinct relatives. The other family is the Tachyglossidae, or echidnas. Within the Ornithorhynchidae are the genera '' Monotrem ...
: platypuses
*Order Tachyglossa: echidnas (spiny anteaters)
**Family Tachyglossidae: echidnas
Subclass
Theriiformes
Theriiformes is a clade of mammals. The term was coined by Timothy B. Rowe in his doctoral dissertation, and is defined as the clade formed by the most recent common ancestor of multituberculates and theria
Theria (; Greek: , wild beast) ...
*Infraclass †Allotheria
Allotheria (meaning "other beasts", from the Greek , '–other and , '–wild animal) is an extinct branch of successful Mesozoic mammals. The most important characteristic was the presence of lower molariform teeth equipped with two longitudin ...
**Order †Multituberculata
Multituberculata (commonly known as multituberculates, named for the multiple tubercles of their teeth) is an extinct order of rodent-like mammals with a fossil record spanning over 130 million years. They first appeared in the Middle Jurassic, a ...
: multituberculates
***Family †Plagiaulacidae
Plagiaulacidae is a family of fossil mammals within the order Multituberculata. Remains are known from the Upper Jurassic and earliest Cretaceous of North America and Europe. They were among the more derived representatives of the informal subo ...
***Family † Bolodontidae
***Family †Hahnodontidae
Hahnodontidae is a family of extinct mammaliaforms from Early Cretaceous deposits in Morocco and the Western United States. Although originally considered to belong to the extinct clade Multituberculata, recent work indicates that hahnodontids ...
***Family † Albionbaataridae
***Family †Arginbaataridae
''Arginbaatar'' is a genus of extinct mammal from the Lower Cretaceous of Mongolia. It was a member of the Multituberculata, an order which is also extinct. It belongs to the family Arginbaataridae (Hahn & Hahn 1983). The genus ''Arginbaatar'' w ...
***Family †Kogaionidae
Kogaionidae is a family of fossil mammals within the extinct order Multituberculata. Representatives are known from the Upper Cretaceous and the Paleocene of Europe. Having started as island endemics on Hateg Island during the Upper Cretaceous, ...
***Suborder †Cimolodonta
Cimolodonta is a taxon of extinct mammals that lived from the Cretaceous to the Eocene. They were some of the more derived members of the extinct order Multituberculata. They probably lived something of a rodent-like existence until their ...
****Family † Sloanbaataridae
**** Superfamily †Ptilodontoidea
Ptilodontoidea is a group of extinct mammals from the Northern Hemisphere.
They were generally small, somewhat rodent-like creatures of the extinct order Multituberculata.
Some of these genera boast a great many species, though remains are g ...
*****Family †Cimolodontidae
Cimolodontidae is a family of fossil mammals within the extinct order Multituberculata. Representatives are known from the Upper Cretaceous and Paleocene of North America. The family Cimolodontidae was named by Othniel Charles Marsh in 1889 a ...
*****Family †Ptilodontidae
Ptilodontidae is a family of primitive mammals within the extinct order Multituberculata. Representatives are known from the Upper Cretaceous and Paleocene of North America.
The Ptilodontidae family was originally named Ptilodontinae and classi ...
****Superfamily †Taeniolabidoidea
Taeniolabidoidea is a group of extinct mammals known from North America and Asia. They were the largest members of the extinct order Multituberculata, as well as the largest non-therian mammals. ''Lambdopsalis'' even provides direct fossil eviden ...
*****Family †Cimolomyidae
Cimolomyidae is a family of fossil mammal within the extinct order Multituberculata. Representatives are known from the Upper Cretaceous and the Paleocene of North America and perhaps Mongolia. The family is part of the suborder Cimolodonta. Oth ...
*****Family †Eucosmodontidae
Eucosmodontidae is a poorly preserved family of fossil mammals within the extinct order Multituberculata. Representatives are known from strata dating from the Upper Cretaceous through the Lower Eocene of North America, as well as the Paleocene ...
*****Family †Taeniolabididae
Taeniolabididae is one of the two multituberculate clades within Taeniolabidoidea. Originally basically synonymous with Taeniolabidoidea, it has more recently been found to be a specific clade including '' Kimbetopsalis'', '' Taeniolabis'' and so ...
***Suborder †Gondwanatheria
Gondwanatheria is an extinct group of mammaliaforms that lived in parts of Gondwana, including Madagascar, India, South America, Africa and Antarctica during the Upper Cretaceous through the Paleogene (and possibly much earlier, if '' Allostaff ...
****Family †Ferugliotheriidae
Ferugliotheriidae is one of three known families in the order Gondwanatheria, an enigmatic group of extinct mammals. Gondwanatheres have been classified as a group of uncertain affinities or as members of Multituberculata, a major extinct mammal ...
****Family †Sudamericidae
Sudamericidae is a family of gondwanathere mammals that lived during the late Cretaceous to Miocene. Its members include '' Lavanify'' and ''Vintana'' from the Cretaceous of Madagascar, '' Bharattherium'' (=''Dakshina'') from the Cretaceous of I ...
*Infraclass † Triconodonta
**Family † Austrotriconodontidae
**Family †Amphilestidae
Amphilestidae is a family of Mesozoic mammals, generally regarded as eutriconodonts. They may form a paraphyletic or polyphyletic assemblage, though they share with gobiconodontids their similar tooth occlusion
Occlusion may refer to:
Health ...
**Family †Triconodontidae
Triconodontidae is an extinct family of small, carnivorous mammals belonging to the order Eutriconodonta, endemic to what would become Asia, Europe, North America and probably also Africa and South America during the Jurassic through Cretaceous p ...
*Infraclass Holotheria
Mammalia is a class of animal within the phylum Chordata. Mammal classification has been through several iterations since Carl Linnaeus initially defined the class. No classification system is universally accepted; McKenna & Bell (1997) and Wilso ...
**Family †Chronoperatidae
''Chronoperates'' (meaning "time wanderer" in Greek language, Greek) is an extinct genus of mammal whose remains have been found in a late Paleocene deposit in Alberta, Canada. It is represented by the type species ''Chronoperates paradoxus'' and ...
**Superlegion † Kuehneotheria
***Family †Kuehneotheriidae
Kuehneotheriidae is an extinct family of mammaliaforms traditionally placed within 'Symmetrodonta', though now generally considered more basal than true symmetrodonts. All members of Kuehneotheriidae which have been found so far are represented o ...
***Family † Woutersiidae
**Superlegion Trechnotheria
Trechnotheria is a group of mammals that includes the therians and some fossil mammals from the Mesozoic Era. In the Jurassic through Cretaceous periods, the group was endemic to what would be Asia and Africa.
Trechnotheria has been assigned va ...
***Legion †Symmetrodonta
Symmetrodonta is a group of Mesozoic mammals and mammal-like synapsids characterized by the triangular aspect of the molars when viewed from above, and the absence of a well-developed talonid. The traditional group of 'symmetrodonts' ranges in a ...
****Family †Shuotheriidae
Shuotheriidae is a small family of Jurassic mammals whose remains are found in China, England and possibly Russia. They have been proposed to be close relatives of Australosphenida, the group that contains living monotremes, together forming the ...
****Order † Amphidontoidea
*****Family †Amphidontidae
The Amphidontidae are a family of extinct mammals from the Early Cretaceous, belonging to the triconodonts. It contains most of the species previously belonged to Amphilestidae.
Phylogeny
Cladogram
A cladogram (from Greek ''clados'' "b ...
****Order † Spalacotherioidea
*****Family †Tinodontidae
Tinodontidae is an extinct Family (biology), family of actively mobile Mammal, mammals, endemic to what would now be North America, Asia, Europe, and Africa during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
Taxonomy
''Tinodontidae''
was named by Mars ...
*****Family † Spalacotheriidae
*****Family † Barbereniidae
***Legion Cladotheria
Cladotheria is a clade (sometimes ranked as a legion) of mammals. It contains modern therian mammals (marsupials and placentals) and several extinct groups, such as the dryolestoids, amphitheriids and peramurids. The clade was named in 1975 by M ...
****Sublegion † Dryolestoidea
*****Order † Dryolestida
******Family †Dryolestidae
Dryolestidae is an extinct family of Mesozoic mammals, known from the Middle Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous of the North Hemisphere. The oldest known member, '' Anthracolestes'', is known from the Middle Jurassic Itat Formation of Western Siber ...
******Family †Paurodontidae
Paurodontidae is a family of Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous mammals in the order Dryolestida. Remains of paurodontids have been found in the United States, Britain, Portugal, and Tanzania. The group likely represents a paraphyletic group of ...
******Family †Donodontidae
Cladotheria is a clade (sometimes ranked as a legion) of mammals. It contains modern therian mammals (marsupials and placentals) and several extinct groups, such as the dryolestoids, amphitheriids and peramurids. The clade was named in 1975 by M ...
******Family †Mesungulatidae
Mesungulatidae is an extinct clade of meridiolestidan dryolestoid mammals from the Late Cretaceous of South America and possibly other Gondwannan landmasses. They are particularly notable for their ecological speciation and large size.
Charact ...
******Family †Reigitheriidae
''Reigitherium'' was a mammal that lived during the Late Cretaceous, in the (Late Campanian-Maastrichtian). Its fossils have been found in the Los Alamitos Formation, Los Alamitos and the La Colonia Formation, La Colonia Formation (geology), Form ...
******Family †Brandoniidae
Dryolestidae is an extinct family of Mesozoic mammals, known from the Middle Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous of the North Hemisphere. The oldest known member, '' Anthracolestes'', is known from the Middle Jurassic Itat Formation of Western Siber ...
*****Order †Amphitheriida
Amphitheriidae is a family of Mesozoic mammals restricted to the Middle Jurassic of Britain, with indeterminate members also possibly known from the equivalently aged Itat Formation in Siberia and the Anoual Formation of Morocco. They were memb ...
******Family †Amphitheriidae
Amphitheriidae is a family of Mesozoic mammals restricted to the Middle Jurassic of Britain, with indeterminate members also possibly known from the equivalently aged Itat Formation in Siberia and the Anoual Formation of Morocco. They were memb ...
****Sublegion Zatheria
Cladotheria is a clade (sometimes ranked as a legion) of mammals. It contains modern therian mammals (marsupials and placentals) and several extinct groups, such as the dryolestoids, amphitheriids and peramurids. The clade was named in 1975 by M ...
*****Family † Arguitheriidae
*****Family † Arguimuridae
*****Family †Vincelestidae
''Vincelestes'' ("Vince's thief") is an extinct genus of actively mobile mammal, that lived in what would be South America during the Early Cretaceous from 130 to 112 Annum, mya, existing for approximately .
Description
''Vincelestes neuquenia ...
*****Infralegion †Peramura
The family Peramuridae is a family of mammals that lived in the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous. They are considered to be advanced cladotherians closely related to therian mammals as part of Zatheria
Cladotheria is a clade (sometimes ra ...
******Family †Peramuridae
The family Peramuridae is a family of mammals that lived in the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous
The Early Cretaceous (geochronology, geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphy, chronostratigraphic name), is the earlie ...
*****Infralegion Tribosphenida
Tribosphenida is a group (infralegion) of mammals that includes the ancestor of ''Hypomylos'', Aegialodontia and Theria (the last common ancestor of marsupials and placentals plus all of its descendants). Its current definition is more or less sy ...
******Family † Necrolestidae
******Supercohort †Aegialodontia
Aegialodontia is a clade of extinct early mammals, close to the origin of Boreosphenida. The clade includes some of the oldest known tribosphenic taxa, until the discovery of ''Tribactonodon'' from the Berriasian Durlston Formation in 2001 in pal ...
*******Family †Aegialodontidae
Aegialodontia is a clade of extinct early mammals, close to the origin of Boreosphenida. The clade includes some of the oldest known tribosphenic taxa, until the discovery of '' Tribactonodon'' from the Berriasian Durlston Formation in 2001, ' ...
******Supercohort Theria
Theria (; Greek: , wild beast) is a subclass of mammals amongst the Theriiformes. Theria includes the eutherians (including the placental mammals) and the metatherians (including the marsupials) but excludes the egg-laying monotremes.
Ch ...
: therian mammals
*******Family †Pappotheriidae
''Pappotherium'' is an extinct genus of mammals from the Albian ( early Cretaceous) of Texas, US, known from a fossilized maxilla fragment bearing two tribosphenic molars, discovered within the Glen Rose Formation near Decatur, Wise County, Texa ...
*******Family † Holoclemensiidae
*******Family † Kermackiidae
*******Family † Endotheriidae
*******Family † Picopsidae
*******Family † Potamotelsidae
*******Family † Plicatodontidae
*******Order †Deltatheroida
Deltatheroida is an extinct group of basal metatherians that were distantly related to modern marsupials. The majority of known members of the group lived in the Cretaceous; one species, '' Gurbanodelta kara'', is known from the late Paleocene ( ...
********Family †Deltatheridiidae
Deltatheridiidae is an extinct family of basal carnivorous metatherians that lived in the Cretaceous and were closely related to marsupials. Their fossils are restricted to Central Asia (Mongolia and Uzbekistan) and North America (United St ...
********Family † Deltatheroididae
*******Order †Asiadelphia
Asiatheriidae ("Asian opossums") is an family of Cretaceous metatherians in the order Asiadelphia. Different from the Ameridelphia, they lacked a prominent distolateral process on the scaphoid, and possessed a more slender fibula. The masset ...
********Family †Asiatheriidae
Asiatheriidae ("Asian opossums") is an family of Cretaceous metatherians in the order Asiadelphia. Different from the Ameridelphia, they lacked a prominent distolateral process on the scaphoid, and possessed a more slender fibula. The masset ...
*******Cohort Marsupialia
Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a pou ...
: marsupials
********Family †Yingabalanaridae
''Yingabalanara'' is an extinct mammal from the Miocene of Australia. Known only from a few teeth, its affinities with other mammal groups remain unresolved.
Description
''Yingabalanara'' is known from two lower right molar teeth. The chewing su ...
********Suborder † Archimetatheria
*********Family †Stagodontidae
Stagodontidae is an extinct family of carnivorous metatherian mammals that inhabited North America and Europe during the late Cretaceous, and possibly to the Eocene in South America.
Description
Currently, the family includes four genera, '' ...
*********Family † Pediomyidae
********Magnorder Australidelphia
*********Superorder Microbiotheria
Microbiotheria is an australidelphian marsupial order that encompasses two families, Microbiotheriidae and Woodburnodontidae, and is represented by only one extant species, the monito del monte, and a number of extinct species known from fossi ...
**********Family Microbiotheriidae
Microbiotheriidae is a family of australidelphian marsupials represented by only one extant species, the monito del monte, and a number of extinct species known from fossils in South America, Western Antarctica, and northeastern Australia.
Micr ...
: monito del monte
*********Superorder Eometatheria
Australidelphia is the superorder that contains roughly three-quarters of all marsupials, including all those native to Australasia and a single species — the monito del monte — from South America. All other American marsupials are members o ...
**********Order †Yalkaparidontia
''Yalkaparidon'' is an extinct genus of Australian marsupials, first described in 1988 and known only from the Oligo-Miocene deposits of Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland, Australia.
Species
Two species, ''Y. coheni'' and ''Y. jonesi'', h ...
***********Family †Yalkaparidontidae
''Yalkaparidon'' is an extinct genus of Australian marsupials, first described in 1988 and known only from the Oligocene, Oligo-Miocene deposits of Australian Fossil Mammal Sites (Riversleigh), Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland, Australia.
Sp ...
**********Order Notoryctemorphia
Notoryctidae is a family of mammals, allying several extant and fossil species of Australia.
The group appear to have diverged from other marsupials at an early stage and are highly specialised to foraging through loose sand; the unusual feature ...
: marsupial moles
***********Family Notoryctidae
Notoryctidae is a family of mammals, allying several extant and fossil species of Australia.
The group appear to have diverged from other marsupials at an early stage and are highly specialised to foraging through loose sand; the unusual feature ...
: marsupial moles
**********Grandorder Dasyuromorphia
Dasyuromorphia (, meaning "hairy tail" in Greek) is an order comprising most of the Australian carnivorous marsupials, including quolls, dunnarts, the numbat, the Tasmanian devil, and the thylacine. In Australia, the exceptions include the omn ...
: marsupial carnivores
***********Family †Thylacinidae
Thylacinidae is an extinct family of carnivorous, superficially dog-like marsupials from the order Dasyuromorphia. The only species to survive into modern times was the thylacine (''Thylacinus cynocephalus''), which became extinct in 1936.
The ...
: recently extinct Tasmanian tiger and relatives
***********Family Dasyuridae
The Dasyuridae are a family of marsupials native to Australia and New Guinea, including 71 extant species divided into 17 genera. Many are small and mouse-like or shrew-like, giving some of them the name marsupial mice or marsupial shrews, but th ...
: Tasmanian devil, quolls, numbat, etc.
**********Grandorder Syndactyli: syndactylous marsupials
***********Order Peramelia
The Order (biology), order Peramelemorphia includes the bandicoots and bilby, bilbies; it equates approximately to the mainstream of marsupial omnivores. All members of the order are endemic to the twin land masses of Australia-New Guinea and mo ...
: bandicoots
************Family Peramelidae
The marsupial family Peramelidae contains all of the extant bandicoots. They are found throughout Australia and New Guinea, with at least some species living in every available habitat, from rainforest to desert. Four fossil peramelids are descri ...
************Family Peroryctidae
The New Guinean long-nosed bandicoots (genus ''Peroryctes'') are members of the order (biology), order Peramelemorphia. They are small to medium-sized marsupial omnivores native to New Guinea.
Two fossil taxa from Australia, ''Peroryctes tedford ...
***********Order Diprotodontia
Diprotodontia (, from Greek "two forward teeth") is the largest extant order of marsupials, with about 155 species, including the kangaroos, wallabies, possums, koala, wombats, and many others. Extinct diprotodonts include the hippopotamus-sized ...
************Family †Palorchestidae
Palorchestidae is an extinct family of diprotodont marsupials whose members are sometimes referred to as marsupial tapirs due to their superficial similarity to true tapirs.
Genera
The family consists of the following four genera:
* ''Propalor ...
************Family † Wynardiidae
************Family †Thylacoleonidae
Thylacoleonidae is a family of extinct meat-eating marsupials from Australia, referred to as marsupial lions. The best known is ''Thylacoleo carnifex'', also called the marsupial lion. The clade ranged from the Late Oligocene to the Pleistoc ...
************Family Tarsipedidae
The honey possum or noolbenger (''Tarsipes rostratus''), is a tiny species of marsupial that feeds on the nectar and pollen of a diverse range of flowering plants. Found in southwest Australia, it is an important pollinator for such plants as '' ...
: honey possum
************Superfamily Vombatoidea
The Vombatiformes are one of the three suborders of the large marsupial order Diprotodontia. Seven of the nine known families within this suborder are extinct; only the families Phascolarctidae, with the koala, and Vombatidae, with three extan ...
*************Family †Ilariidae
The Ilariidae is a family of fossil mammals. Most ilariids are found in the middle Tertiary faunal assemblages of South Australia. '' Ilaria illumidens'' is the best-preserved representative of this extinct clade of vombatiforms.
The species is ...
*************Family †Diprotodontidae
The Diprotodontidae are an extinct family of large herbivorous marsupials, endemic to Australia and New Guinea during the Oligocene through Pleistocene periods from 28.4 million to 40,000 years ago. The family consisted of large quadrupedal te ...
*************Family Vombatidae: wombats
************Superfamily Phalangeroidea
The Phalangeroidea are a superfamily of mammals that include the families Burramyidae and Phalangeridae
The Phalangeridae are a family of mostly nocturnal marsupials native to Australia, New Guinea, and Eastern Indonesia, including the cusc ...
*************Family Phalangeridae
The Phalangeridae are a family of mostly nocturnal marsupials native to Australia, New Guinea, and Eastern Indonesia, including the cuscuses, brushtail possums, and their close relatives. Considered a type of possum, most species are arboreal, ...
: phalangers
*************Family Burramyidae
The pygmy possums are a family of small possums that together form the marsupial family Burramyidae. The five extant species of pygmy possum are grouped into two genera. Four of the species are endemic to Australia, with one species also co-occu ...
: pygmy possums
*************Family Macropodidae
Macropodidae is a family of marsupials that includes kangaroos, wallabies, tree-kangaroos, wallaroos, pademelons, quokkas, and several other groups. These genera are allied to the suborder Macropodiformes, containing other macropods, and ar ...
: rat kangaroos, kangaroos and wallabies
*************Family Petauridae
Petauridae is a family of possums containing 13 species: four species of trioks and striped possum (genus ''Dactylopsila''), eight species of wrist-winged glider (genus ''Petaurus''), and Leadbeater's possum (''Gymnobelideus leadbeateri''), whic ...
: gliders
*************Family †Ektopodontidae
''Ektopodon'' is an extinct genus of marsupial, and is the type genus of the family Ektopodontidae which occurred in forested environments in South Australia, Queensland and Victoria. The last species of this group went extinct in the early Ple ...
*************Family Phascolarctidae
The Phascolarctidae (''φάσκωλος (phaskolos)'' - pouch or bag, ''ἄρκτος (arktos)'' - bear, from the Greek ''phascolos'' + ''arctos'' meaning pouched bear) is a family of marsupials of the order Diprotodontia, consisting of only one ...
: koala
*************Family † Pilkipildridae
*************Family † Miralinidae
*************Family Acrobatidae
The Acrobatidae are a small family of flying and gliding animals, gliding marsupials containing two genera, each with a single species, the feathertail glider (''Acrobates pygmaeus'') from Australia and feather-tailed possum (''Distoechurus penn ...
: feather-tail glider, pen-tailed phalanger
********Magnorder Ameridelphia
Ameridelphia is traditionally a superorder that includes all marsupials living in the Americas except for the Monito del monte (''Dromiciops''). It is now regarded as a paraphyletic group.
Orders
The orders within this group are listed below:
* ...
*********Order Didelphimorphia: opossums
**********Family Didelphidae: opossums
**********Family † Sparassocynidae
*********Order Paucituberculata
Paucituberculata is an order of South American marsupials. Although currently represented only by the seven living species of shrew opossums, this order was formerly much more diverse, with more than 60 extinct species named from the fossil rec ...
**********Superfamily Caenolestoidea
***********Family † Sternbergiidae
***********Family Caenolestidae
The family Caenolestidae contains the seven surviving species of shrew opossum: small, shrew-like marsupials that are confined to the Andes mountains of South America. The order is thought to have diverged from the ancestral marsupial line very e ...
: rat or shrew opossums
***********Family † Paleothentidae
***********Family † Abderitidae
**********Superfamily † Polydolopoidea
***********Family † Sillustaniidae
***********Family † Polydolopidae
***********Family † Prepidolopidae
***********Family † Bonapartheriidae
**********Superfamily † Argyrolagoidea
***********Family † Argyrolagidae
***********Family †Patagoniidae
''Patagonia'' is an extinct genus of non-placental mammal from the Miocene of Argentina. Traditionally considered a metatherian ''incertae sedis'', one analysis suggested it to be a gondwanathere. However, this has been rejected by other authors ...
***********Family †Groeberiidae
Groeberiidae is a family of strange non-placental mammals from the Eocene and Oligocene epochs of Patagonia, Argentina and Chile, South America. Originally classified as paucituberculate marsupials, they were suggested to be late representativ ...
**********Superfamily † Caroloameghinioidea
***********Family † Glasbiidae
***********Family † Caroloameghiniidae
*********Order †Sparassodonta
Sparassodonta (from Greek to tear, rend; and , gen. , ' tooth) is an extinct order of carnivorous metatherian mammals native to South America, related to modern marsupials. They were once considered to be true marsupials, but are now th ...
**********Family † Mayulestidae
**********Family †Hondadelphidae
''Hondadelphys'' is an extinct genus of carnivorous sparassodonts, known from the Middle Miocene of Colombia. The type species, ''H. fieldsi'', was described in 1976 from the fossil locality of La Venta, which hosts fossils from the Villavieja Fo ...
**********Family †Borhyaenidae
Borhyaenidae is an extinct metatherian family of low-slung, heavily built predatory mammals in the order Sparassodonta. Borhyaenids are not true marsupials, but members of a sister taxon, Sparassodonta. Like most metatherians, borhyaenids and o ...
*******Cohort Placentalia
Placental mammals (infraclass Placentalia ) are one of the three extant subdivisions of the class Mammalia, the other two being Monotremata and Marsupialia. Placentalia contains the vast majority of extant mammals, which are partly distinguished ...
: placentals
********Order †Bibymalagasia
''Plesiorycteropus'', also known as the bibymalagasy or Malagasy aardvark, is a recently extinct eutherian mammalian genus from Madagascar. Upon its description in 1895, it was classified with the aardvark, but more recent molecular evidence ins ...
********Magnorder Xenarthra
Xenarthra (; from Ancient Greek ξένος, xénos, "foreign, alien" + ἄρθρον, árthron, "joint") is a major clade of placental mammals native to the Americas. There are 31 living species: the anteaters, tree sloths, and armadillos. Ex ...
: edentates
*********Order Cingulata
Cingulata, part of the superorder Xenarthra, is an order of armored New World placental mammals. Dasypodids and chlamyphorids, the armadillos, are the only surviving families in the order. Two groups of cingulates much larger than extant ar ...
: armadillos and relatives
**********Family † Protobradidae
**********Superfamily Dasypodoidea
***********Family Dasypodidae
Dasypodidae is a family of mostly extinct genera of armadillos. One genus, '' Dasypus'', is extant, with at least seven living species.
__TOC__
Classification
Below is a taxonomy of armadillos in this family.
Family Dasypodidae
*† Genus ...
: armadillos
***********Family † Peltephilidae
**********Superfamily † Glyptodontoidea
***********Family †Pampatheriidae
Pampatheriidae ("Pampas beasts") is an extinct family of large plantigrade armored armadillos related to extant armadillos in the order Cingulata. However, pampatheriids have existed as a separate lineage since at least the middle Eocene Muster ...
***********Family † Palaeopeltidae
***********Family †Glyptodontidae
Glyptodonts are an extinct subfamily of large, heavily armoured armadillos. They arose in South America around 48 million years ago and spread to southern North America after the continents became connected several million years ago. The best- ...
: glyptodonts
*********Order Pilosa
The order Pilosa is a clade of xenarthran placental mammals, native to the Americas. It includes the anteaters and sloths (which includes the extinct ground sloths). The name comes from the Latin word for "hairy".
Origins and taxonomy
The bi ...
: anteaters, sloths, and relatives
**********Family † Entelopidae
**********Suborder Vermilingua
Anteater is a common name for the four extant mammal species of the suborder Vermilingua (meaning "worm tongue") commonly known for eating ants and termites. The individual species have other names in English and other languages. Together with ...
***********Family Myrmecophagidae
The Myrmecophagidae are a family of anteaters, the name being derived from the Ancient Greek words for 'ant' and 'eat' (''myrmeco-'' and '). Two genera and three species are in the family, consisting of the giant anteater, and the tamanduas. T ...
: giant anteaters and relatives
***********Family Cyclopedidae
The Cyclopedidae is a family of anteaters that includes the silky anteater
The silky anteater, also known as the pygmy anteater, has traditionally been considered a single species of anteater, ''Cyclopes didactylus'', in the genus ''Cyclopes ...
: pygmy anteater
**********Suborder Phyllophaga
''Phyllophaga'' is a very large genus (more than 900 species) of New World scarab beetles in the subfamily Melolonthinae. Common names for this genus and many other related genera in the subfamily Melolonthinae are May beetles, June bugs, and Jul ...
***********Family †Rathymotheriidae
Ground sloths are a diverse group of extinct sloths in the mammalian superorder Xenarthra. The term is used to refer to all extinct sloths because of the large size of the earliest forms discovered, compared to existing tree sloths. The Carib ...
***********Infraorder † Mylodonta
************Superfamily †Mylodontoidea
Sloths are a group of Neotropical xenarthran mammals constituting the suborder Folivora, including the extant arboreal tree sloths and extinct terrestrial ground sloths. Noted for their slowness of movement, tree sloths spend most of their l ...
*************Family †Scelidotheriidae
Scelidotheriidae is a family of extinct ground sloths within the order Pilosa, suborder Folivora and superfamily Mylodontoidea, related to the other extinct mylodontoid family, Mylodontidae, as well as to the living two-toed sloth family C ...
*************Family †Mylodontidae
Mylodontidae is a family of extinct South American and North American ground sloths within the suborder Folivora of order Pilosa, living from around 23 million years ago (Mya) to 11,000 years ago. This family is most closely related to another f ...
************Superfamily †Orophodontoidea
Ground sloths are a diverse group of extinct sloths in the mammalian superorder Xenarthra. The term is used to refer to all extinct sloths because of the large size of the earliest forms discovered, compared to existing tree sloths. The Carib ...
*************Family †Orophodontidae
Mylodontidae is a family of extinct South American and North American ground sloths within the suborder Folivora of order Pilosa, living from around 23 million years ago (Mya) to 11,000 years ago. This family is most closely related to another f ...
***********Infraorder Megatheria
Sloths are a group of Neotropical xenarthran mammals constituting the suborder Folivora, including the extant arboreal tree sloths and extinct terrestrial ground sloths. Noted for their slowness of movement, tree sloths spend most of their li ...
************Superfamily Megatherioidea
Sloths are a group of Neotropical xenarthran mammals constituting the suborder Folivora, including the extant arboreal tree sloths and extinct terrestrial ground sloths. Noted for their slowness of movement, tree sloths spend most of their li ...
*************Family †Megatheriidae
Megatheriidae is a family of extinct ground sloths that lived from approximately 23 mya—11,000 years ago.
Megatheriids appeared during the Late Oligocene (Deseadan in the SALMA classification), some 29 million years ago, in South America ...
: ground sloths
*************Family Megalonychidae
Megalonychidae is an extinct family of sloths including the extinct ''Megalonyx''. Megalonychids first appeared in the early Oligocene, about 35 million years (Ma) ago, in southern Argentina (Patagonia). There is actually one possible find datin ...
: two-toed sloths
************Superfamily Bradypodoidea
The three-toed or three-fingered sloths are arboreal neotropical mammals . They are the only members of the genus ''Bradypus'' and the family Bradypodidae. The four living species of three-toed sloths are the brown-throated sloth, the maned slot ...
*************Family Bradypodidae: three-toed sloths
********Magnorder Epitheria
Epitherians comprise all the placental mammals except the Xenarthra. They are primarily characterized by having a stirrup-shaped stapes in the middle ear, which allows for passage of a blood vessel. This is in contrast to the column-shaped stape ...
: epitheres
*********Superorder †Leptictida
Leptictida (''leptos iktis'' "small/slender weasel") is a possibly paraphyletic extinct order of eutherian mammals. Their classification is contentious: according to cladistic studies, they may be (distantly) related to Euarchontoglires (rodents ...
**********Family †Gypsonictopidae
''Gypsonictops'' is an extinct genus of leptictidan mammals of the monotypic family Gypsonictopidae, which was described in 1927 by George Gaylord Simpson. Species in this genus were small mammals and the first representatives of the order Lepti ...
**********Family † Kulbeckiidae
**********Family † Didymoconidae
**********Family † Leptictidae
*********Superorder Preptotheria
Preptotheria is a superorder of placental mammals proposed by McKenna & Bell in their classification of mammals.
Classification
The Linnean taxonomy of Preptotheria according to the scheme of McKenna & Bell (1997):
Cohort Placentalia
Magnor ...
**********Grandorder Anagalida
Anagaloidea is an extinct order of placental mammals that first appeared during the Paleocene epoch.
Taxonomy
According to the traditional (morphological) view, Anagaloidea is part of the superorder Anagalida, along with the elephant shrews, rod ...
***********Family † Zambdalestidae
***********Family †Anagalidae
Anagalidae is an extinct family of mammals closely related to rodents and lagomorphs. Members of the family are known from Paleocene
The Paleocene, ( ) or Palaeocene, is a geological epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 million years ago ...
***********Family † Pseudictopidae
***********Mirorder Macroscelidea: elephant shrews
************Family Macroscelididae: elephant shrews
***********Mirorder Duplicidentata
The lagomorphs are the members of the taxonomic order Lagomorpha, of which there are two living families: the Leporidae (hares and rabbits) and the Ochotonidae (pikas). The name of the order is derived from the Ancient Greek ''lagos'' (λαγ ...
************Order † Mimotonida
*************Family † Mimotonidae
************Order Lagomorpha
The lagomorphs are the members of the taxonomic order Lagomorpha, of which there are two living families: the Leporidae (hares and rabbits) and the Ochotonidae ( pikas). The name of the order is derived from the Ancient Greek ''lagos'' (λαγ ...
*************Family Ochotonidae: pikas
*************Family Leporidae
Leporidae is the family of rabbits and hares, containing over 60 species of extant mammals in all. The Latin word ''Leporidae'' means "those that resemble ''lepus''" (hare). Together with the pikas, the Leporidae constitute the mammalian order ...
: rabbits
***********Mirorder Simplicidentata
Simplicidentata is a group of mammals that includes the rodents (order Rodentia) and their closest extinct relatives. The term has historically been used as an alternative to Rodentia, contrasting the rodents (which have one pair of upper incisor ...
************Order † Mixodontia
*************Family †Eurymylidae
Eurymylidae is a family (biology), family of extinct Simplicidentata, simplicidentates. Most authorities consider them to be Basal (phylogenetics), basal to all modern rodents and may have been the ancestral stock whence the most recent common a ...
************Order Rodentia
Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal species are rodents. They are nat ...
: rodents
*************Family †Alagomyidae
Alagomyidae is a family of rodents known from the late Paleocene and early Eocene of Asia and North America (McKenna and Bell, 1997). Alagomyids have been identified as the most basal rodents, lying outside the common ancestry of living forms ( ...
*************Family † Laredomyidae
*************Suborder Sciuromorpha
Sciuromorpha ("squirrel-like") is a rodent clade that includes several different rodent families. It includes all members of the Sciuridae (the squirrel family) as well as the mountain beaver species.
Traditionally, the term has been defined on ...
**************Superfamily † Ischyromyoidea
***************Family † Ischyromyidae
**************Superfamily Aplodontoidea
The family Aplodontiidae also known as Aplodontidae, Haplodontiidae or Haploodontini is traditionally classified as the sole extant family of the suborder Protrogomorpha. It may be the sister family of the Sciuridae.
There are fossils from the ...
***************Family † Allomyidae
***************Family Aplodontiidae
The family Aplodontiidae also known as Aplodontidae, Haplodontiidae or Haploodontini is traditionally classified as the sole extant family of the suborder Protrogomorpha. It may be the sister family of the Sciuridae.
There are fossils from the ...
: mountain beaver
***************Family †Mylagaulidae
The Mylagaulidae or mylagaulids are an extinct clade of sciuromorph rodents nested within the family Aplodontiidae. They are known from the Neogene of North America and China. The oldest member is the Late Oligocene '' Trilaccogaulus montan ...
**************Infraorder † Theridomyomorpha
***************Family † Theridomyidae
**************Infraorder Sciurida
Sciuromorpha ("squirrel-like") is a rodent clade that includes several different rodent families. It includes all members of the Sciuridae (the squirrel family) as well as the mountain beaver species.
Traditionally, the term has been defined on ...
***************Family † Reithroparamyidae
***************Family Sciuridae
Squirrels are members of the family Sciuridae, a family that includes small or medium-size rodents. The squirrel family includes tree squirrels, ground squirrels (including chipmunks and prairie dogs, among others), and flying squirrels. Squ ...
: squirrels
**************Infraorder Castorimorpha
Castorimorpha is the suborder of rodents containing the beavers and the kangaroo rats. A 2017 study using retroposon markers indicated that they are most closely related to the Anomaluromorpha (the scaly-tailed squirrels and the springhare) and ...
***************Family †Eutypomyidae
Eutypomyidae is a family (biology), family of extinct rodents from North America and Eurasia thought to be related to modern beavers.
References
Prehistoric rodent families
Eocene first appearances
Miocene extinctions
{{paleo-rodent- ...
***************Family Castoridae
The family Castoridae contains the two living species of beavers and their fossil relatives. A highly diverse group of rodents within this family once roamed the earth, but only a single genus is extant today, '' Castor''.
Characteristics
Ca ...
: beavers
***************Family †Rhizospalacidae
''Rhizospalax'' is a genus of extinct rodent from Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also ...
*************Suborder Myomorpha
The suborder Myomorpha contains 1,524 species of mouse-like rodents, nearly a quarter of all mammal species. Included are mice, rats, gerbils, hamsters, lemmings, and voles. They are grouped according to the structure of their jaws and molar ...
**************Family † Protoptychidae
**************Infraorder Myodonta
The suborder Myomorpha contains 1,524 species of mouse-like rodents, nearly a quarter of all mammal species. Included are mouse, mice, rats, Gerbillinae, gerbils, hamsters, lemmings, and voles. They are grouped according to the structure of thei ...
***************Superfamily Dipodoidea
Dipodoidea is a superfamily of rodents, also known as dipodoids, found across the Northern Hemisphere. This superfamily includes over 50 species among the 16 genera in 3 families. They include the jerboas (family Dipodidae), jumping mice (fa ...
****************Family †Armintomyidae
''Armintomys'' is an extinct genus of rodent from North America related to jerboas and jumping mouse, jumping mice. It is the only genus in the family Armintomyidae. It lived during the early Eocene, and is the oldest known example of a Zygomass ...
****************Family Dipodidae
Jerboas (from ar, جربوع ') are hopping desert rodents found throughout North Africa and Asia, and are members of the family Dipodidae. They tend to live in hot deserts.
When chased, jerboas can run at up to . Some species are preyed on b ...
: jumping mice, jerboas
***************Superfamily Muroidea
The Muroidea are a large superfamily of rodents, including mice, rats, voles, hamsters, lemmings, gerbils, and many other relatives. Although the Muroidea originated in Eurasia, they occupy a vast variety of habitats on every continent excep ...
****************Family †Simimyidae
Simimyidae is a family of extinct rodent
Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the order Rodentia (), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and lower jaws. About 40% ...
****************Family Muridae
The Muridae, or murids, are the largest family of rodents and of mammals, containing approximately 1,383 species, including many species of mice, rats, and gerbils found naturally throughout Eurasia, Africa, and Australia.
The name Muridae come ...
: rats, mice, and relatives
**************Infraorder Glirimorpha
A dormouse is a rodent of the family (biology), family Gliridae (this family is also variously called Myoxidae or Muscardinidae by different taxonomists). Dormice are nocturnal animals found in Africa, Asia, and Europe. They are named for their ...
***************Family Myoxidae
A dormouse is a rodent of the family (biology), family Gliridae (this family is also variously called Myoxidae or Muscardinidae by different taxonomists). Dormice are nocturnal animals found in Africa, Asia, and Europe. They are named for their ...
: dormice
**************Infraorder Geomorpha
***************Superfamily †Eomyoidea
Eomyidae is a family (biology), family of extinct rodents from North America and Eurasia related to modern day pocket gophers and Heteromyidae, kangaroo rats. They are known from the Middle Eocene to the Late Miocene in North America and from the ...
****************Family †Eomyidae
Eomyidae is a family of extinct rodents from North America and Eurasia related to modern day pocket gophers and kangaroo rats. They are known from the Middle Eocene to the Late Miocene in North America and from the Late Eocene to the Pleis ...
***************Superfamily Geomyoidea
Geomyoidea is a superfamily of rodent that contains the pocket gophers ( Geomyidae), the kangaroo rats and mice ( Heteromyidae), and their fossil relatives.
Characteristics
Although dissimilar in overall appearance, gophers have been united wit ...
****************Family †Florentiamyidae
Florentiamyidae is a family of extinct rodents from North America. They are part of the Superfamily Geomyoidea according to R. L. Carroll 1988. They are known to have existed 33.3 to 15.97 mya. They are known from the Miocene of United State ...
****************Family Geomyidae: pocket gophers, pocket mice, and kangaroo rats
*************Suborder Anomaluromorpha
Anomaluromorpha is a clade that unites the anomalures, springhares, and zenkerella. It has alternately been designated as either a suborder or infraorder. Most recently, recognized it as one of five suborders of rodents.
Characteristics
...
**************Superfamily Pedetoidea
***************Family † Parapedetidae
***************Family Pedetidae
The Pedetidae are a family of mammals from the rodent order. The two living species, the springhares, are distributed throughout much of southern Africa and also around Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Fossils have been found as far north as Turkey.M ...
: springhaas
**************Superfamily Anomaluroidea
***************Family † Zegdoumyidae
***************Family Anomaluridae: scaly-tailed squirrels
*************Suborder Sciuravida
**************Family † Ivanantoniidae
**************Family † Sciuravidae
**************Family †Chapattimyidae
Chapattimyidae is an extinct family of rodent from Asia. According to Fossilworks, it contains two subfamilies and six unplaced genera.
* Subfamily Baluchimyinae Flynn et al. 1986
** ''Asterattus'' Flynn and Cheema 1994
** ''Baluchimys'' Flynn ...
**************Family †Cylindrodontidae
Mammalia is a class of animal within the phylum Chordata. Mammal classification has been through several iterations since Carl Linnaeus initially defined the class. No classification system is universally accepted; McKenna & Bell (1997) and Wilso ...
**************Family Ctenodactylidae: gundis
*************Suborder Hystricognatha
The Hystricognathi are an infraorder of rodents, distinguished from other rodents by the bone structure of their skulls. The masseter medialis (a jaw muscle) passes partially through a hole below each eye socket (called the infraorbital foramen) ...
**************Family †Tsaganomyidae
The Tsaganomyidae are an extinct family of rodents from Asia. It contains three genera. Tsaganomyids are generally considered to be related to the Hystricognathi (porcupines and relatives). Members of Tsaganomyidae were fossorial (digging) roden ...
**************Infraorder Hystricognathi
The Hystricognathi are an infraorder of rodents, distinguished from other rodents by the bone structure of their skull
The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, fa ...
***************Family Hystricidae: Old World porcupines
***************Family Erethizontidae: New World porcupines
***************Family †Myophiomyidae
Myophiomyidae is an extinct family of Old World hystricognath
The Hystricognathi are an infraorder of rodents, distinguished from other rodents by the bone structure of their skulls. The masseter medialis (a jaw muscle) passes partially th ...
***************Family †Diamantomyidae
Diamantomyidae is a family of extinct hystricognath rodents from Africa 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, ...
***************Family †Phiomyidae
The Phiomyidae are a family of prehistoric rodents from Africa and Eurasia. A 2011 study placed ''Gaudeamus'' in a new family, Gaudeamuridae.
Genera
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of livin ...
***************Family †Kenyamyidae
Kenyamyidae is an extinct family of rodents from Africa that lived in the Lower Miocene
The Early Miocene (also known as Lower Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene Epoch made up of two stages: the Aquitanian and Burdigalian stages.
The ...
***************Family Petromuridae
Petromuridae is a family of hystricognath rodents that contains the dassie rat ''(Petromus typicus)'' of southwestern Africa, the only extant member of this group.
The genus ''Petromus
''Petromus'' is a genus of hystricognath rodents that co ...
: rock rats
***************Family Thryonomyidae
Thryonomyidae is a family of hystricognath rodents that contains the cane rats ''(Thryomys)'' found throughout sub-Saharan Africa, and a number of fossil genera.
Taxonomy
Thryonomyidae was formerly more diverse and widespread, with fossil relati ...
: cane rats
***************Parvorder Bathyergomorphi
****************Family Bathyergidae: mole-rats
****************Family † Bathyergoididae
***************Parvorder Caviida
****************Superfamily Cavioidea
Caviomorpha is the rodent infraorder or parvorder that unites all New World hystricognaths. It is supported by both fossil and molecular phylogeny, molecular evidence. The Caviomorpha was for a time considered to be a separate order outside the R ...
*****************Family Agoutidae
A paca is a member of the genus ''Cuniculus'' of ground-dwelling, herbivorous rodents in South America, South and Central America. It is the only genus in the family (biology), family Cuniculidae. Pacas are large rodents with dots and stripes ...
: agoutis and pacas
*****************Family †Eocardiidae
The Eocardiidae are an extinct family of caviomorph rodents from South America. The family is probably ancestral to the living family Caviidae, which includes cavies, maras, and capybaras and their relatives. McKenna and Bell (1997) divided eoca ...
*****************Family Dinomyidae
The Dinomyidae are a family of South American hystricognath rodents: the dinomyids were once a very speciose group, but now contains only a single living species, the pacarana. Several of the extinct dinomyids were among the largest rodents know ...
: pacarana
*****************Family Caviidae
Caviidae, the cavy family, is composed of rodents native to South America and includes the domestic guinea pig, wild cavies, and the largest living rodent, the capybara. They are found across South America in open areas from moist savanna to tho ...
: cavies
*****************Family Hydrochoeridae
Hydrochoerinae is a subfamily of Caviidae, consisting of two living genera, ''Hydrochoerus'', the capybaras, and ''Kerodon'', the rock cavies. In addition, a number of extinct genera related to capybaras should also be placed in this subfamily. T ...
: capybara
****************Superfamily Octodontoidea
Caviomorpha is the rodent infraorder or parvorder that unites all New World hystricognaths. It is supported by both fossil and molecular evidence. The Caviomorpha was for a time considered to be a separate order outside the Rodentia, but is now ...
*****************Family Octodontidae
Octodontidae is a family of rodents, restricted to southwestern South America. Fourteen species of octodontid are recognised, arranged in seven genera. The best known species is the common degu, ''Octodon degus''.
Octodontids are medium-sized ...
: degus, tuco-tucos
*****************Family Echimyidae
Echimyidae is the family of neotropical spiny rats and their fossil relatives. This is the most species-rich family of hystricognath rodents. It is probably also the most ecologically diverse, with members ranging from fully arboreal to terr ...
: spiny rats, nutria
*****************Family Capromyidae: hutias
*****************Family †Heptaxodontidae
Heptaxodontidae, rarely called giant hutia, is an extinct family (taxonomy), family of large rodents known from fossil and subfossil material found in the West Indies. One species, ''Blunt-toothed giant hutia, Amblyrhiza inundata'', is estimated ...
****************Superfamily Chinchilloidea
*****************Family Chinchillidae
The family Chinchillidae is in the order Rodentia and consists of the chinchillas, the viscachas, and their fossil relatives. This family is restricted to southern and western South America, mostly living in mountainous regions of the Andes but ...
: chinchillas, viscachas
*****************Family †Neoepiblemidae
The Neoepiblemidae are an extinct family of hystricognath rodents from South America. The genera '' Dabbenea'' and '' Perumys'' are now included in ''Phoberomys''. The delineation between Neoepiblemidae and Dinomyidae has historically been unclea ...
*****************Family Abrocomidae: rat chinchillas
**********Grandorder Ferae
Ferae ( , , "wild beasts") is a mirorder of placental mammalsMalcolm C. McKenna, Susan K. Bell: ''Classification of Mammals: Above the Species Level'' in Columbia University Press, New York (1997), 631 Seiten. that groups together clades Pan-C ...
***********Order Cimolesta
Cimolesta is an extinct order of non-placental eutherian mammals. Cimolestans had a wide variety of body shapes, dentition and lifestyles, though the majority of them were small to medium-sized general mammals that bore superficial resemblances ...
- pangolins and relatives
************Family †Palaeoryctidae
Palaeoryctidae or Palaeoryctoidea ("old/stony digger", from Greek: ὀρύκτης, ''oryctes'') is an extinct group of relatively non-specialized non-placental eutherian mammals that lived in North America during the late Cretaceous and took par ...
************Suborder † Didelphodonta
*************Family †Cimolestidae
Cimolesta is an extinct order of non-placental eutherian mammals. Cimolestans had a wide variety of body shapes, dentition and lifestyles, though the majority of them were small to medium-sized general mammals that bore superficial resemblances t ...
************Suborder †Apatotheria
Apatemyidae is an extinct family of placental mammals that took part in the first placental evolutionary radiation together with other early mammals such as the leptictids. Their relationships to other mammal groups are controversial; a 2010 stu ...
*************Family †Apatemyidae
Apatemyidae is an extinct family of placental mammals that took part in the first placental evolutionary radiation together with other early mammals such as the leptictids. Their relationships to other mammal groups are controversial; a 2010 stu ...
************Suborder †Taeniodonta
Taeniodonta ("banded teeth") is an extinct early group of cimolestid mammals known from the Maastrichtian to the Eocene. Taeniodonts evolved quickly into highly specialized digging animals, and varied greatly in size, from rat-sized to species a ...
*************Family † Stylinodontidae
************Suborder †Tillodonta
Tillodontia is an extinct suborder of eutherian mammals known from the Early Paleocene to Late Eocene of China, the Late Paleocene to Middle Eocene of North America where they display their maximum species diversity, the Middle Eocene of Pakistan ...
*************Family † Tillotheriidae
************Suborder †Pantodonta
Pantodonta is an extinct suborder (or, according to some, an order) of eutherian mammals. These herbivorous mammals were one of the first groups of large mammals to evolve (around 66 million years ago) after the end of the Cretaceous. The last ...
*************Family † Wangliidae
*************Superfamily † Bemalambdoidea
**************Family † Harpyodidae
**************Family †Bemalambdidae
Bemalambdidae is an extinct family of pantodont mammals known from Early and Middle Paleocene of China.
Description
The bemalambdids are, along with '' Harpyodus'' and ''Alcidedorbignya'', the most primitive pantodonts. ''Hypsilolambda'' is k ...
*************Superfamily †Pantolambdoidea
Pantodonta is an extinct suborder (or, according to some, an Order (biology), order) of eutherian mammals. These herbivorous mammals were one of the first groups of large mammals to evolve (around 66 million years ago) after the K-T boundary, en ...
**************Family † Pastoralodontidae
**************Family †Titanoideidae
''Titanoides'' is an extinct genus of pantodont mammal that lived in North Dakota and as far north as central Alberta. They were up to long and up to in weight, being the largest mammals of their habitat, a tropical swampland where the main pr ...
**************Family † Pantolambdidae
**************Family †Barylambdidae
Barylambdidae is an extinct family of pantodont
Pantodonta is an extinct suborder (or, according to some, an order) of eutherian mammals. These herbivorous mammals were one of the first groups of large mammals to evolve (around 66 million yea ...
**************Family † Cyriacotheriidae
**************Family † Pantolambdodontidae
*************Superfamily †Coryphodontoidea
Coryphodontidae is an extinct family of pantodont mammals known from the Late Paleocene to the Middle Eocene of Eurasia and North America.
The type genus ''Coryphodon'' is known from around the Paleocene-Eocene transition in Europe, western Unit ...
**************Family †Coryphodontidae
Coryphodontidae is an extinct family of pantodont mammals known from the Late Paleocene to the Middle Eocene of Eurasia and North America.
The type genus '' Coryphodon'' is known from around the Paleocene-Eocene transition in Europe, western Un ...
************Suborder † Pantolesta
*************Family †Pantolestidae
Pantolestidae is an extinct family of semi-aquatic, non-placental eutherian mammals. Forming the core of the equally extinct suborder Pantolesta, the pantolestids evolved as a series of increasingly otter-like forms, ranging from the Middle P ...
*************Family † Paroxyclaenidae
*************Family †Ptolemaiidae
Ptolemaiida is a taxon of wolf-sized Afrotheria, afrothere mammals that lived in northern and eastern Africa during the Paleogene. The oldest fossils are from the latest Eocene strata of the Jebel Qatrani Formation, near the Fayum oasis in Egypt. ...
************Suborder Pholidota
Pangolins, sometimes known as scaly anteaters, are mammals of the order Pholidota (, from Ancient Greek ϕολιδωτός – "clad in scales"). The one extant family, the Manidae, has three genera: ''Manis'', ''Phataginus'', and ''Smutsia'' ...
*************Family †Epoicotheriidae
Epoicotheriidae ("strange beasts") is an extinct family of insectivorous mammals which were endemic to North America from the early Eocene to the early Oligocene 55.8—30.9 Ma existing for approximately . Epoicotheriids were highly specialized ...
*************Family † Metacheiromyidae
*************Family Manidae: pangolins
************Suborder †Ernanodonta
Palaeanodonta ("ancient toothless animals") is an extinct clade of stem- pangolins. They were insectivorous, possibly fossorial, and lived from the Early Paleocene to Early Oligocene in North America, Europe and East Asia. While the taxonomic ...
*************Family †Ernanodontidae
Ernanodontidae ("sprouts of toothless animals") is an extinct family of insectivorous stem-pangolins which were endemic to Asia from the middle Paleocene to the early Eocene
The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about ...
***********Order †Creodonta
Creodonta ("meat teeth") is a former order of extinct carnivorous placental mammals that lived from the early Paleocene to the late Miocene epochs in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Originally thought to be a single group of animals ance ...
: creodonts
************Family †Hyaenodontidae
Hyaenodontidae ("hyena teeth") is a family of extinct predatory mammals from extinct superfamily Hyaenodontoidea within extinct order Hyaenodonta. Hyaenodontids arose during the early Eocene and persisted well into the early Miocene. Fossils of ...
************Family †Oxyaenidae
Oxyaenidae ("sharp hyenas") is a family of extinct carnivorous placental mammals. Traditionally classified in order Creodonta, this group is now classified in its own order Oxyaenodonta ("sharp tooth hyenas") within clade Pan-Carnivora in mirord ...
***********Order Carnivora
Carnivora is a Clade, monophyletic order of Placentalia, placental mammals consisting of the most recent common ancestor of all felidae, cat-like and canidae, dog-like animals, and all descendants of that ancestor. Members of this group are f ...
************Suborder Feliformia
Feliformia is a suborder within the order Carnivora consisting of "cat-like" carnivorans, including cats (large and small), hyenas, mongooses, viverrids, and related taxa. Feliformia stands in contrast to the other suborder of Carnivora, Canifor ...
*************Family †Viverravidae
Viverravidae ("ancestors of viverrids") 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 As ...
*************Family †Nimravidae
Nimravidae is an extinct family of carnivorans, sometimes known as false saber-toothed cats, whose fossils are found in North America and Eurasia. Not considered to belong to the true cats (family Felidae), the nimravids are generally considered ...
*************Family Felidae
Felidae () is the family of mammals in the order Carnivora colloquially referred to as cats, and constitutes a clade. A member of this family is also called a felid (). The term "cat" refers both to felids in general and specifically to the ...
: cats
*************Family Viverridae
Viverridae is a family (biology), family of small to medium-sized, feliform mammals. The viverrids () comprise 33 species placed in 14 genera. This family was named and first described by John Edward Gray in 1821. Viverrids occur all over Africa, ...
: civets, Asiatic palm civets
*************Family Herpestidae
A mongoose is a small terrestrial carnivorous mammal belonging to the family Herpestidae. This family is currently split into two subfamilies, the Herpestinae and the Mungotinae. The Herpestinae comprises 23 living species that are native to so ...
: mongooses
*************Family Hyaenidae: hyaenas, aardwolf
*************Family Nandiniidae: African palm civets
************Suborder Caniformia
*************Family †Miacidae
Miacids are extinct primitive carnivoramorphans within the family Miacidae that lived during the Paleocene and Eocene epochs, about 62–34 million years ago. Miacids existed for approximately .
Miacids are thought to have evolved into the ...
*************Infraorder Cynoidea
Canidae (; from Latin, ''canis'', "dog") is a biological family of dog-like carnivorans, colloquially referred to as dogs, and constitutes a clade. A member of this family is also called a canid (). There are three subfamilies found within ...
**************Family Canidae: dogs
*************Infraorder Arctoidea
Arctoidea is a clade of mostly carnivorous mammals which include the extinct Hemicyonidae (dog-bears), and the extant Musteloidea (weasels, raccoons, skunks, red pandas), Pinnipedia (seals, sea lions), and Ursidae (bears), found in all continents ...
**************Parvorder Ursida
***************Superfamily †Amphicyonoidea
****************Family †Amphicyonidae
Amphicyonidae is an extinct family of terrestrial
Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth.
Terrestrial may also refer to:
* Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an ...
***************Superfamily Ursoidea
****************Family Ursidae
Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the Nort ...
: bears
****************Family †Hemicyonidae
Hemicyoninae is an extinct subfamily of Ursidae, often called dog bears (literally "half dog" (Ancient Greek, Greek: )). They were bear-like carnivorans living in Europe, North America, Africa and Asia during the Oligocene through Miocene epoch ...
***************Superfamily Phocoidea
****************Family Otariidae: eared seals
****************Family Phocidae: seals, walrus
**************Parvorder Mustelida
Arctoidea is a clade of mostly Carnivore, carnivorous mammals which include the extinct Hemicyoninae, Hemicyonidae (dog-bears), and the extant Musteloidea (weasels, raccoons, skunks, red pandas), Pinniped, Pinnipedia (seals, sea lions), and Bear, ...
***************Family Mustelidae
The Mustelidae (; from Latin ''mustela'', weasel) are a family of carnivorous mammals, including weasels, badgers, otters, ferrets, martens, minks and wolverines, among others. Mustelids () are a diverse group and form the largest family in ...
: weasels, skunks, and relatives
***************Family Procyonidae: ringtails, olingos, kinkajou, raccoons, coatis, red panda
**********Grandorder Lipotyphla
Lipotyphla is a formerly used order (biology), order of mammals, including the members of the order Eulipotyphla (i.e. the solenodons, family Solenodontidae; hedgehogs and gymnures, family Erinaceidae; desmans, moles, and shrew-like moles, family T ...
***********Family †Adapisoriculidae
Adapisoriculidae is an extinct family of non-placental eutherian mammals present during the Paleogene and possibly the Late Cretaceous. They were once thought to be members of the order Erinaceomorpha,
closely related to the hedgehog family ( E ...
************Order Chrysochloridea
*************Family Chrysochloridae
Golden moles are small insectivorous burrowing mammals endemic to Sub-Saharan Africa. They comprise the family Chrysochloridae and as such they are taxonomically distinct from the true moles, family Talpidae, and other mole-like families, all ...
: golden moles
************Order Erinaceomorpha
Erinaceidae is a family in the order Eulipotyphla, consisting of the hedgehogs and moonrats. Until recently, it was assigned to the order Erinaceomorpha, which has been subsumed with the paraphyletic Soricomorpha into Eulipotyphla. Eulipotyph ...
*************Family † Sespedectidae
*************Family †Amphilemuridae
The Amphilemuridae are a family of extinct mammals belonging to the order Eulipotyphla, from the Eocene
The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleog ...
*************Family †Adapisoricidae
This is an incomplete list of prehistoric mammals. It does not include List of mammals, extant mammals or List of extinct mammals, recently extinct mammals. For extinct primate species, see: list of fossil primates.Mikko's Phylogeny Archiv
Mamm ...
*************Family † Creotarsidae
*************Superfamily Erinaceoidea
**************Family Erinaceidae: hedgehogs and relatives
*************Superfamily Talpoidea
**************Family † Proscalopidae
**************Family Talpidae
The family Talpidae () includes the moles (some of whom are called shrew moles and desmans) who are small insectivorous mammals of the order Eulipotyphla. Talpids are all digging animals to various degrees: moles are completely subterranean ...
: moles
**************Family †Dimylidae
''Dimylus'' is an extinct genus of insectivore mammal.
The creature probably resembled the modern desman in terms of size (10–20 cm in length) and physical appearance, possessing a proboscis. Its knobby teeth were small (no longer than 3, ...
************Order Soricomorpha
Soricomorpha (from Greek "shrew-form") is a formerly used taxon within the class of mammals. In the past it formed a significant group within the former order Insectivora. However, Insectivora was shown to be polyphyletic and various new orders ...
*************Family † Otlestidae
*************Family †Geolabididae
Geolabididae is an extinct family of prehistoric mammals belonging to the order Eulipotyphla.
Taxonomy
*'' Batodon'' (Sometimes placed in Cimolestidae)
**''Batodon tenuis'' Marsh, 1892 - Upper Cretaceous Campanian to Maastrichtian, Canada and Un ...
*************Superfamily Soricoidea
**************Family †Nesophontidae
''Nesophontes'', sometimes called West Indies shrews, is the sole genus of the extinct, monotypic mammal family Nesophontidae in the order Eulipotyphla. These animals were small insectivores, about 5 to 15 cm long, with a long slender snout ...
: recently extinct west Indian shrews
**************Family † Micropternodontidae
**************Family † Apternodontidae
**************Family Solenodontidae
Solenodons (from el, τέλειος , 'channel' or 'pipe' and el, ὀδούς , 'tooth') are venomous, nocturnal, burrowing, insectivorous mammals belonging to the family Solenodontidae . The two living solenodon species are the Cuban solen ...
: solenodons
**************Family † Plesiosoricidae
**************Family †Nyctitheriidae
Nyctitheriidae is a family of extinct eulipotyphlan insectivores known from the Paleocene and Eocene epochs of North America and Asia and persisting into the Oligocene of Europe. Several genera, including '' Nyctitherium'', '' Paradoxonycteris' ...
**************Family Soricidae: shrews
*************Superfamily Tenrecoidea
The order Afrosoricida (a Latin-Greek compound name which means "looking like African shrews") contains the golden moles of Southern Africa, the otter shrews of equatorial Africa and the tenrecs of Madagascar. These three families of small mamm ...
**************Family Tenrecidae: tenrecs
**********Grandorder Archonta
The Archonta are a now-abandoned group of mammals, considered a superorder in some classifications, which consists of these orders:
*Primates
* Plesiadapiformes (extinct primate-like archontans)
* Scandentia (treeshrews)
* Dermoptera (colugos)
W ...
***********Order Chiroptera
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most bir ...
: bats
************Suborder Megachiroptera
*************Family Pteropodidae: flying foxes
************Suborder Microchiroptera
*************Family †Archaeonycteridae
Archaeonycteridae (formerly spelled Archaeonycterididae) is a Family (biology), family of extinct bats. It was originally erected by the Swiss people, Swiss naturalist Pierre Revilliod as Archaeonycterididae to hold the genus ''Archaeonycteris''. ...
*************Family †Paleochiropterygidae
Palaeochiropterygidae is a family of extinct bats. It was originally erected by the Swiss naturalist Pierre Revilliod in 1917 after discoveries of '' Palaeochiropteryx'' fossils from the Messel Pit of Germany. Palaeochiropterygidae was merged ...
*************Family † Hassianycterididae
*************Family Emballonuridae
Emballonuridae is a family of microbats, many of which are referred to as sac-winged or sheath-tailed bats. They are widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions around the world. The earliest fossil records are from the Eocene.
Descr ...
: sac-winged bats
*************Infraorder Yinochiroptera
**************Superfamily Rhinopomatoidea
***************Family Rhinopomatidae: mouse-tailed bats
***************Family Craseonycteridae: bumblebee bats
**************Superfamily Rhinolophoidea
***************Family Megadermatidae
Megadermatidae, or false vampire bats, are a family of bats found from central Africa, eastwards through southern Asia, and into Australia. They are relatively large bats, ranging from 6.5 cm to 14 cm in head-body length. They have la ...
: false vampire bats
***************Family Nycteridae: hispid bats
***************Family Rhinolophidae: horseshoe and Old World leaf-nosed bats
*************Infraorder Yangochiroptera
Yangochiroptera, or Vespertilioniformes, is a suborder of Chiroptera that includes most of the microbat families, except the Rhinopomatidae, Rhinolophidae, Hipposideridae, and Megadermatidae. These other families, plus the megabats, are seen ...
**************Family Mystacinidae
__NOTOC__
Mystacinidae is a family of unusual bats, the New Zealand short-tailed bats. There is one living genus, '' Mystacina'', with two species, one of which could have possibly become extinct in the 1960s. They are medium-sized bats, about in ...
: New Zealand short-tailed bats
**************Superfamily Noctilionoidea
Noctilionoidea is a superfamily of bats containing seven families: Thyropteridae, Furipteridae, Noctilionidae, Mormoopidae, Phyllostomidae, Myzopodidae, and Mystacinidae.
It is one of three superfamilies in the suborder Yangochiroptera, the ...
***************Family Noctilionidae: fishing bats
***************Family Mormoopidae
The family Mormoopidae contains bats known generally as mustached bats, ghost-faced bats, and naked-backed bats. They are found in the Americas from the Southwestern United States to Southeastern Brazil.
They are distinguished by the presenc ...
: spectacled bats
***************Family Phyllostomidae: New World leaf-nosed and vampire bats
**************Superfamily Vespertilionoidea
Vespertilionoidea is a superfamily of bats containing five families: Cistugidae, Miniopteridae, Molossidae, Natalidae, and Vespertilionidae. It is one of three superfamilies in the suborder Yangochiroptera, the others being Noctilionoidea
Noc ...
***************Family †Philisidae
Philisidae is an extinct family of bats of the suborder Microchiroptera that lived between the Eocene to the Late Miocene in the continent of Africa.
Genera
Currently the following genera are known:
*†'' Dizzya'' Sigé, 1991
*†'' Philis ...
***************Family Molossidae: free-tailed bats
***************Family Natalidae
The family Natalidae, or funnel-eared bats, are found from Mexico to Brazil and the Caribbean islands. The family has three genera, '' Chilonatalus'', '' Natalus'' and '' Nyctiellus''. They are slender bats with unusually long tails and, as th ...
: funnel-eared bats
***************Family Furipteridae
Furipteridae is family of bats, allying two genera of single species, '' Amorphochilus schnablii'' (smoky bat) and the type '' Furipterus horrens'' (thumbless bat). They are found in Central and South America and are closely related to the bats ...
: smoky bats
***************Family Thyropteridae
Disk-winged bats are a small group of bats of the family Thyropteridae and genus Thyroptera. They are found in Central and South America, usually in moist tropical rain forests. It is a very small family, consisting of a single genus with five e ...
: New World sucker-footed bats
***************Family Myzopodidae
''Myzopoda'', which has two described species, is the only genus in the bat family Myzopodidae. Myzopodidae is unique as the only family of bats presently endemic to Madagascar. However, fossil discoveries indicate that the family has an ancie ...
: Old World sucker-footed bats
***************Family Vespertilionidae
Vespertilionidae is a family of microbats, of the order Chiroptera, flying, insect-eating mammals variously described as the common, vesper, or simple nosed bats. The vespertilionid family is the most diverse and widely distributed of bat familie ...
: common bats
***********Order Primates: primates
************Family †Purgatoriidae
Purgatoriidae is a basal plesiadapiform family that includes, ''Purgatorius'' and '' Ursolestes''. Purgatoriids are thought to represent the earliest members of the Plesiadapiformes
Plesiadapiformes ("Adapid-like" or "near Adapiformes") is a ...
************Family † Microsyopidae
************Family †Micromomyidae
Micromomyidae (Micromomids) is a family of extinct plesiadapiform mammals that include some of the earliest known primates. The family includes five genera that lived from the Paleocene epoch into the early Eocene epoch.
Micromomyids first appea ...
************Family † Picromomyidae
************Family †Plesiadapidae
Plesiadapidae is a family of plesiadapiform mammals related to primates known from the Paleocene and Eocene of North America, Europe, and Asia. Plesiadapids were abundant in the late Paleocene, and their fossils are often used to establish the a ...
************Family † Palaechthonidae
************Family † Picrodontidae
************Suborder Dermoptera
*************Family † Paramomyidae
*************Family † Plagiomenidae
*************Family †Mixodectidae
Mixodectidae (from Greek μιξο, ''mixo'', "mixed", and δεκτες, ''dektes'' "biter") is an extinct family of insectivorous placental mammals in the order Dermoptera. The mixodectids originated in the late Cretaceous and survived into th ...
*************Family Galeopithecidae
Colugos () are arboreal gliding mammals that are native to Southeast Asia. Their closest evolutionary relatives are primates. There are just two living species of colugos: the Sunda flying lemur (''Galeopterus variegatus'') and the Philippine f ...
: colugos
************Suborder Euprimates
Primates are a diverse order of mammals. They are divided into the strepsirrhines, which include the lemurs, galagos, and lorisids, and the haplorhines, which include the tarsiers and the simians ( monkeys and apes, the latter including hu ...
*************Infraorder Strepsirrhini
Strepsirrhini or Strepsirhini (; ) is a Order (biology), suborder of primates that includes the Lemuriformes, lemuriform primates, which consist of the lemurs of Fauna of Madagascar, Madagascar, galagos ("bushbabies") and pottos from Fauna of A ...
**************Family † Plesiopithecidae
**************Superfamily Daubentonioidea
***************Family Daubentoniidae
''Daubentonia'' is the sole genus of the Daubentoniidae, a family of lemuroid primate native to much of Madagascar.
The aye-aye ''(Daubentonia madagascariensis)'' is the only extant member. However, a second species known as the giant aye-aye ...
: aye-aye
**************Superfamily Lemuroidea
***************Family †Adapidae
Adapidae is a family of extinct primates that primarily radiated during the Eocene epoch between about 55 and 34 million years ago.
Adapid systematics and evolutionary relationships are controversial, but there is fairly good evidence from the ...
***************Family Lemuridae
Lemuridae is a family of strepsirrhine primates native to Madagascar and the Comoros. They are represented by the Lemuriformes in Madagascar with one of the highest concentration of the lemurs. One of five families commonly known as lemurs. Thes ...
: lemurs
**************Superfamily Loroidea
***************Family Lorisidae
Lorisidae (or sometimes Loridae) is a family of strepsirrhine primates. The lorisids are all slim arboreal animals and comprise the lorises, pottos and angwantibos. Lorisids live in tropical, central Africa as well as in south and southeast Asia. ...
: lorises and galagos
***************Family Cheirogaleidae
The Cheirogaleidae are the family of strepsirrhine primates containing the various dwarf and mouse lemurs. Like all other lemurs, cheirogaleids live exclusively on the island of Madagascar.
Characteristics
Cheirogaleids are smaller than the ...
: dwarf lemurs
**************Superfamily Indroidea
***************Family † Archaeolemuridae
***************Family † Palaeopropithecidae
***************Family Indriidae
The Indriidae (sometimes incorrectly spelled Indridae) are a family of strepsirrhine primates. They are medium- to large-sized lemurs, with only four teeth in the toothcomb instead of the usual six. Indriids, like all lemurs, live exclusively on ...
: indris and sifakas
*************Infraorder Haplorhini
**************Parvorder Tarsiiformes
Tarsiiformes are a group of primates that once ranged across Europe, northern Africa, Asia, and North America, but whose extant species are all found in the islands of Southeast Asia. Tarsiers (family Tarsiidae) are the only living members o ...
***************Superfamily †Carpolestoidea
Carpolestidae is a family of primate-like Plesiadapiformes that were prevalent in North America and Asia from the mid Paleocene through the early Eocene. Typically, they are characterized by two large upper posterior premolars and one large lower ...
****************Family †Carpolestidae
Carpolestidae is a family of primate-like Plesiadapiformes that were prevalent in North America and Asia from the mid Paleocene through the early Eocene. Typically, they are characterized by two large upper posterior premolars and one large lo ...
***************Superfamily Tarsioidea
****************Family †Omomyidae
Omomyidae is a group of early primates that radiated during the Eocene epoch between about (mya). Fossil omomyids are found in North America, Europe & Asia making it one of two groups of Eocene primates with a geographic distribution spanning h ...
****************Family † Microchoeridae
****************Family † Afrotarsiidae
****************Family Tarsiidae: tarsiers
**************Parvorder Anthropoidea
The simians, anthropoids, or higher primates are an infraorder (Simiiformes ) of primates containing all animals traditionally called monkeys and apes. More precisely, they consist of the parvorders New World monkeys (Platyrrhini) and Catarrh ...
***************Family †Eosimiidae
Eosimiidae is the possible family of extinct primates believed to be the earliest simians.
Taxonomy
When they were discovered the possibility that Eosimians were outside and ancestral to Simians was considered (Culotta 1992), but subsequent ...
***************Family †Parapithecidae
Parapithecidae is an extinct family of primates which lived in the Eocene and Oligocene periods in Egypt. Eocene fossils from Myanmar are sometimes included in the family in addition. They showed certain similarities in dentition to Condylarthra, ...
***************Superfamily Cercopithecoidea
Old World monkey is the common English name for a family of primates known taxonomically as the Cercopithecidae (). Twenty-four genera and 138 species are recognized, making it the largest primate family. Old World monkey genera include baboons ...
****************Family † Pliopithecidae
****************Family Cercopithecidae: Old World monkeys including colobuses
****************Family Hominidae
The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the ea ...
: humans, greater apes, lesser apes
***************Superfamily Callitrichoidea
****************Family Callitrichidae
The Callitrichidae (also called Arctopitheci or Hapalidae) are a family of New World monkeys, including marmosets, tamarins, and lion tamarins. At times, this group of animals has been regarded as a subfamily, called the Callitrichinae, of the ...
: marmosets
****************Family Atelidae
The Atelidae are one of the five family (biology), families of New World monkeys now recognised. It was formerly included in the family Cebidae. Atelids are generally larger monkeys; the family includes the howler monkey, howler, spider monkey, ...
: New World monkeys
***********Order Scandentia
************Family Tupaiidae
Tupaiidae is one of two families of treeshrews, the other family being Ptilocercidae. The family contains three living genera and 19 living species. The family name derives from ''tupai'', the Malay word for treeshrew and also for squirrel which ...
: tree shrews
**********Grandorder Ungulata
Ungulates ( ) are members of the diverse clade Ungulata which primarily consists of large mammals with hooves. These include odd-toed ungulates such as horses, rhinoceroses, and tapirs; and even-toed ungulates such as cattle, pigs, giraffes, ...
: ungulates
***********Order Tubulidentata
Orycteropodidae is a family of afrotherian mammals. Although there are many fossil species, the only species surviving today is the aardvark, ''Orycteropus afer''. Orycteropodidae is recognized as the only family within the order Tubulidentata ...
************Family Orycteropodidae
Orycteropodidae is a family of afrotherian mammals. Although there are many fossil species, the only species surviving today is the aardvark, ''Orycteropus afer''. Orycteropodidae is recognized as the only family within the order Tubulidentata ...
: aardvark
***********Order †Dinocerata
Dinocerata (from the Greek (), "terrible", and (), "horn") is an extinct order of plant-eating hoofed mammals with horns and protuberant canine teeth.
Classification
A 2015 phylogenetic study recovered Dinocerata as closely related to '' ...
************Family †Uintatheriidae
Uintatheriidae is a family of extinct ungulate mammals that includes ''Uintatherium''. Uintatheres belong to the order Dinocerata, one of several extinct orders of primitive hoofed mammals that are sometimes united in the Condylarthra.
Uintathe ...
***********Mirorder Eparctocyona
************Order † Procreodi
*************Family † Oxyclaenidae
*************Family †Arctocyonidae
Arctocyonidae (from Greek '' arktos'' ''kyôn'', "bear/dog-like") has been defined as an extinct family of unspecialized, primitive mammals with more than 20 genera. Animals assigned to this family were most abundant during the Paleocene, but ex ...
************Order †Condylarthra
Condylarthra is an informal group – previously considered an order – of extinct placental mammals, known primarily from the Paleocene and Eocene epochs. They are considered early, primitive ungulates. It is now largely considered to be a wast ...
*************Family †Hyopsodontidae
Hyopsodontidae is an extinct family of primitive mammals from the order Condylarthra, living from the Paleocene to the Eocene in North America and Eurasia. Condylarthra is now thought to be a wastebasket taxon; hyopsodontids have occasionally ...
*************Family † Mioclaenidae
*************Family †Phenacodontidae
Phenacodontidae is an extinct family of large herbivorous mammals traditionally placed in the “wastebasket taxon” Condylarthra, which may instead represent early-stage perissodactyls. They lived in the Paleocene and Eocene epochs (about 60 ...
*************Family †Periptychidae
Periptychidae is a family of Paleocene placental mammals, known definitively only from North America. The family is part of a radiation of early herbivorous and omnivorous mammals formerly classified in the extinct order " Condylarthra", which ...
*************Family †Peligrotheriidae
''Peligrotherium'' is an extinct meridiolestidan, and the sole member of the family Peligrotheriidae, from the Paleocene of Patagonia, originally interpreted as a stem-ungulate (though it did co-exist with early meridiungulates). Its remains have ...
*************Family †Didolodontidae
Didolodontidae is a possibly paraphyletic family of "condylarth" mammals known from the Paleocene to the late Eocene of South America.J. N. Gelfo. 2010. The "condylarth" Didolodontidae from Gran Barranca: history of the bunodont South American ma ...
************Order †Arctostylopida
Arctostylopidae is an extinct family of placental mammals from the Late Palaeocene of Eastern Asia and North America. All arctostylopid specimens in North America have been referred to the genus ''Arctostylops''.
They are animals of uncertain af ...
*************Family †Arctostylopidae
Arctostylopidae is an extinct family of placental mammals from the Late Palaeocene of Eastern Asia and North America. All arctostylopid specimens in North America have been referred to the genus '' Arctostylops''.
They are animals of uncertain ...
************Order Cete: whales and relatives
*************Suborder †Acreodi
Mesonychia ("middle claws") is an extinct taxon of small- to large-sized carnivorous ungulates related to artiodactyls. Mesonychids first appeared in the early Paleocene, went into a sharp decline at the end of the Eocene, and died out entirely ...
**************Family †Triisodontidae
Triisodontidae is an extinct, probably paraphyletic, or possibly invalid family of mesonychian placental mammals. Most triisodontid genera lived during the Paleocene in North America, but the genus '' Andrewsarchus'' (if it is a mesonychian, a ...
**************Family †Mesonychidae
Mesonychidae (meaning "middle claws") is an extinct family of small to large-sized omnivorous-carnivorous mammals. They were endemic to North America and Eurasia during the Early Paleocene to the Early Oligocene, and were the earliest group of la ...
: mesonychids
**************Family †Hapalodectidae
Hapalodectidae (literal translation 'soft biters': ('soft, tender'), ('biter')) is an extinct family of relatively small-bodied () mesonychian placental mammals from the Paleocene and Eocene of North America and Asia. Hapalodectids differ fro ...
*************Suborder Cetacea
Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively carnivorous diet. They propel them ...
**************Infraorder †Archaeoceti
Archaeoceti ("ancient whales"), or Zeuglodontes in older literature, is a paraphyletic group of primitive cetaceans that lived from the Early Eocene to the late Oligocene (). Representing the earliest cetacean radiation, they include the initia ...
***************Family †Basilosauridae
Basilosauridae is a family of extinct cetaceans. They lived during the middle to the early late Eocene and are known from all continents, including Antarctica. They were probably the first fully aquatic cetaceans.Buono M, Fordyce R.E., Marx F.G. ...
***************Family †Protocetidae
Protocetidae, the protocetids, form a diverse and heterogeneous group of extinct cetaceans known from Asia, Europe, Africa, South America, and North America.
Description
There were many genera, and some of these are very well known (e.g., ''Ro ...
***************Family †Remingtonocetidae
Remingtonocetidae is a diverse family of early aquatic mammals of the order Cetacea. The family is named after paleocetologist Remington Kellogg.
Description
Remingtonocetids have long and narrow skulls with the external nare openings located ...
**************Infraorder Autoceta
***************Family †Agorophiidae
''Agorophius'' is an extinct genus of toothed whale that lived during the Oligocene period, approximately , in the waters off what is now South Carolina.
Taxonomy
The holotype of ''Agorophius pygmaeus'', MCZ 8761, was first mentioned in an 1848 ...
***************Superfamily † Squalodontoidea
****************Family †Squalodontidae
Squalodontidae or the shark-toothed dolphins is an extinct family of large toothed whales who had long narrow jaws. Squalodontids are known from all continents except Antarctica, from the Oligocene to the Neogene, but they had a maximal diversi ...
****************Family † Rhabdosteidae
***************Parvorder Mysticeti
****************Family †Aetiocetidae
Aetiocetidae is an extinct family of toothed baleen whales known from the Oligocene. The whales are from the North Pacific Ocean and ranged in size from long. Many of the described specimens were discovered from the Upper Oligocene of the Japa ...
****************Family †Mammalodontidae
Mammalodontidae is a family of extinct whales known from the Oligocene of Australia and New Zealand.
There are currently two genera in this family: ''Janjucetus'' and ''Mammalodon''. After a new cladistic analysis by Fitzgerald (2010), ''Janjuce ...
****************Family †Cetotheriidae
Cetotheriidae is a family of baleen whales (parvorder Mysticeti). The family is known to have existed from the Late Oligocene to the Early Pleistocene before going extinct. Although some phylogenetic studies conducted by recovered the livin ...
****************Family Balaenopteridae: rorquals and grey whales
****************Family Balaenidae: right and bowhead whales
***************Parvorder Odontoceti
The toothed whales (also called odontocetes, systematic name Odontoceti) are a parvorder of cetaceans that includes dolphins, porpoises, and all other whales possessing teeth, such as the beaked whales and sperm whales. Seventy-three species of ...
****************Superfamily Physeteroidea
Physeteroidea is a superfamily that includes three extant species of whales: the sperm whale, in the genus ''Physeter'', and the pygmy sperm whale and dwarf sperm whale, in the genus ''Kogia''. In the past, these genera have sometimes been unite ...
*****************Family Physeteridae: sperm whales
****************Superfamily Hyperoodontoidea
*****************Family Hyperoodontidae: beaked whales
****************Superfamily Platanistoidea
River dolphins are a polyphyletic group of fully aquatic mammals that reside exclusively in freshwater or brackish water. They are an informal grouping of dolphins, which itself is a paraphyletic group within the infraorder Cetacea. Extant riv ...
*****************Family Platanistidae: river dolphins
****************Superfamily Delphinoidea
Delphinoidea is the largest group of toothed whales with 66 genera in 6 families. The largest living member of the superfamily is the killer whale, which can reach 6 tons, while the smallest is the vaquita.
Taxonomy
Based on McGowen ''et al''., ...
*****************Family Delphinidae
Oceanic dolphins or Delphinidae are a widely distributed family of dolphins that live in the sea. Close to forty extant species are recognised. They include several big species whose common names contain "whale" rather than "dolphin", such as the ...
: dolphins
*****************Family Pontoporiidae: La Plata River dolphin
*****************Family Lipotidae
Lipotidae is a family of river dolphins containing the possibly extinct baiji of China and the fossil genus ''Parapontoporia'' from the Late Miocene and Pliocene of the Pacific coast of North America. The genus '' Prolipotes'', which is based on ...
: baiiji
*****************Family Iniidae
Iniidae is a family of river dolphins containing one living genus, ''Inia'', and four extinct genera. The extant genus inhabits the river basins of South America, but the family formerly had a wider presence across the Atlantic Ocean.
Iniidae a ...
: Amazon River dolphin
*****************Family † Kentridontidae
*****************Family Monodontidae
The cetacean family Monodontidae comprises two living whale species, the narwhal and the beluga whale and at least four extinct species, known from the fossil record. Beluga and Narwhal are native to coastal regions and pack ice around the Arctic ...
: beluga and narwhal
*****************Family † Odobenocetopsidae
*****************Family † Dalpiazinidae
*****************Family † Acrodelphinidae
*****************Family Phocoenidae
Porpoises are a group of fully aquatic marine mammals, all of which are classified under the family Phocoenidae, parvorder Odontoceti (toothed whales). Although similar in appearance to dolphins, they are more closely related to narwhals ...
: porpoises
*****************Family †Albireonidae
Albireonidae is a monotypic group of extinct porpoise-like whales containing the single genus ''Albireo
Albireo is a double star designated Beta Cygni (β Cygni, abbreviated Beta Cyg, β Cyg). The International Astronomical Unio ...
*****************Family † Hemisyntrachelidae
************Order Artiodactyla
The even-toed ungulates (Artiodactyla , ) are ungulates—hoofed animals—which bear weight equally on two (an even number) of their five toes: the third and fourth. The other three toes are either present, absent, vestigial, or pointing poster ...
: even-toed ungulates
*************Suborder Suiformes
**************Family †Raoellidae
The Raoellidae, previously grouped within Helohyidae, are an extinct family of semiaquatic digitigrade artiodactyls in the clade Whippomorpha. Fossils of raoellids are found in Eocene strata of South and Southeast Asia.
An exceptionally complet ...
**************Family †Choeropotamidae
Choeropotamidae, also known as Haplobunodontidae, are a family of extinct mammals, extinct herbivores, belonging to artiodactyls. They lived between the lower/middle Eocene and lower Oligocene (about 48 - 30 million years ago) and their remai ...
**************Superfamily Suoidea
***************Family Suidae: pigs
***************Family Tayassuidae: peccaries
***************Family † Santheriidae
***************Family Hippopotamidae
Hippopotamidae is a family of stout, naked-skinned, and semiaquatic artiodactyl mammals, possessing three-chambered stomachs and walking on four toes on each foot. While they resemble pigs physiologically, their closest living relatives are t ...
: hippos
**************Superfamily † Dichobunoidea
***************Family †Dichobunidae
Dichobunidae is an extinct family of basal artiodactyl mammals from the early Eocene to late Oligocene of North America, Europe, and Asia. The Dichobunidae include some of the earliest known artiodactyls, such as '' Diacodexis''.
Description ...
***************Family † Cebochoeridae
***************Family † Mixtotheriidae
*****************Family †Helohyidae
Helohyidae were a group of artiodactyl mammals.
They were most prominent in the mid-to-upper Eocene (~50 to 39 million years ago).
Description
Helohyidae share vague similarities to present-day pigs, though were slimmer in build. They possess ...
**************Superfamily † Anthracotherioidea
***************Family † Haplobunodontidae
***************Family †Anthracotheriidae
Anthracotheriidae is a paraphyletic family of extinct, hippopotamus-like artiodactyl ungulates related to hippopotamuses and whales. The oldest genus, ''Elomeryx'', first appeared during the middle Eocene in Asia. They thrived in Africa and Eura ...
**************Superfamily † Anoplotherioidea
***************Family † Dacrytheriidae
***************Family †Anoplotheriidae
Anoplotheriidae is an extinct family of even-toed ungulates ( order Artiodactyla). They were endemic to Western Europe during the Eocene and Oligocene epochs about 48—23 million years ago (Mya), existing for about 25 million years. They disa ...
***************Family †Cainotheriidae
Cainotheriidae is an extinct family of artiodactyls known from the Late Eocene to Middle Miocene of Europe. They are mostly found preserved in karstic deposits.
These animals were small in size, and generally did not exceed in height at the ...
**************Superfamily †Oreodontoidea
***************Family † Agriochoeridae
***************Family †Oreodont
Merycoidodontoidea, sometimes called "oreodonts" or "ruminating hogs", is an extinct superfamily of prehistoric cud-chewing artiodactyls with short faces and fang-like canine teeth. As their name implies, some of the better known forms were gener ...
idae
**************Superfamily †Entelodontoidea
***************Family † Entelodontidae
*************Suborder Tylopoda
Tylopoda (meaning "calloused foot") is a suborder of terrestrial herbivorous even-toed ungulates belonging to the order Artiodactyla. They are found in the wild in their native ranges of South America and Asia, while Australian feral camels ...
**************Family †Xiphodontidae
Xiphodontidae is an extinct family of even-toed ungulates (order Artiodactyla), endemic to Europe during the Eocene 40.4—33.9 million years ago, existing for about 7.5 million years. They were, most likely, all terrestrial herbivore ...
**************Superfamily Cameloidea
***************Family Camelidae
Camelids are members of the biological family Camelidae, the only currently living family in the suborder Tylopoda. The seven extant members of this group are: dromedary camels, Bactrian camels, wild Bactrian camels, llamas, alpacas, vicuñas, ...
: camels and llamas
***************Family †Oromerycidae
Oromerycidae is a small (both in size and diversity), extinct family (biology), family of artiodactyls (even-toed hoofed mammals) closely related to living camels, known from the early to late Eocene of western North America.
Oromerycids are pl ...
**************Superfamily † Protoceratoidea
***************Family †Protoceratidae
Protoceratidae is an extinct family of herbivorous North American artiodactyls (even-toed ungulates) that lived during the Eocene through Pliocene at around 46.2—4.9 Mya, existing for about 41 million years.
Classification
Protoceratidae was ...
*************Suborder Ruminantia
Ruminants ( suborder Ruminantia) are hoofed herbivorous grazing or browsing mammals that are able to acquire nutrients from plant-based food by fermenting it in a specialized stomach prior to digestion, principally through microbial actions. The ...
**************Family † Amphimerycidae
**************Family †Hypertragulidae
Hypertragulidae is an extinct family of artiodactyl ungulates that lived in North America, Europe, and Asia from the Eocene until the Miocene, living 46.2—13.6 million years ago, existing for about 33 million years.
The Hypertragulidae are ...
**************Family Tragulidae
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often v ...
: mouse deer
**************Family † Leptomerycidae
**************Family † Bachitheriidae
**************Family † Lophiomerycidae
**************Family †Gelocidae
The Gelocidae are an extinct group of hornless ruminants, ruminantia that are estimated to have lived during the Eocene and Oligocene epochs, from 36 MYA (unit), MYA to 6 MYA. The family generally includes extinct hornless ruminants which do not ...
**************Superfamily Cervoidea
***************Family Moschidae
Moschidae is a family of pecoran even-toed ungulates, containing the musk deer (''Moschus'') and its extinct relatives. They are characterized by long 'saber teeth' instead of horns, antlers or ossicones, modest size (''Moschus'' only reaches ; ...
: musk deer
***************Family Antilocapridae
The Antilocapridae are a family of artiodactyls endemic to North America. Their closest extant relatives are the giraffids with which they comprise the superfamily Giraffoidea. Only one species, the pronghorn (''Antilocapra americana''), is ...
: pronghorn
***************Family † Palaeomerycidae
***************Family †Hoplitomerycidae
''Hoplitomeryx'' is a genus of extinct deer-like ruminants which lived on the former Gargano Island during the Miocene and the Early Pliocene, now a peninsula on the east coast of South Italy. ''Hoplitomeryx'', also known as "prongdeer", ha ...
***************Family Cervidae
Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...
: deer
**************Superfamily Giraffoidea
Giraffoidea is a superfamily that includes the families Climacoceratidae, Antilocapridae, and Giraffidae. The only extant members in the superfamily are the pronghorn, giraffe, and okapi. The Climacoceratidae are also placed in the superfamil ...
***************Family †Climacoceratidae
Climacoceratidae is a family of superficially deer-like artiodactyl ungulates which lived in the Miocene epoch in Africa. They are close to the ancestry of giraffes, with some genera, such as '' Prolibytherium'', originally classified as giraffes ...
***************Family Giraffidae
The Giraffidae are a family of ruminant artiodactyl mammals that share a common ancestor with deer and bovids. This family, once a diverse group spread throughout Eurasia and Africa, presently comprises only two extant genera, the giraffe (one ...
: giraffe and okapi
**************Superfamily Bovoidea
***************Family Bovidae
The Bovidae comprise the biological family of cloven-hoofed, ruminant mammals that includes cattle, bison, buffalo, antelopes, and caprines. A member of this family is called a bovid. With 143 extant species and 300 known extinct species, ...
: cattle, antelope, and relatives
***********Mirorder †Meridiungulata
South American native ungulates, commonly abbreviated as SANUs, are extinct ungulate-like mammals of controversial affinities that were indigenous to South America prior to the Great American Biotic Interchange. They comprise five major groups co ...
************Family † Perutheriidae
************Family † Amilnedwardsiidae
************Order †Litopterna
Litopterna (from grc, λῑτή πτέρνα "smooth heel") is an extinct order of fossil hoofed mammals from the Cenozoic era. The order is one of the five great orders of South American ungulates that were endemic to the continent, until the G ...
*************Family † Protolipternidae
*************Superfamily †Macrauchenioidea
Litopterna (from grc, λῑτή πτέρνα "smooth heel") is an extinction, extinct order of fossil hoofed mammals from the Cenozoic era. The order is one of the five great orders of Meridiungulata, South American ungulates that were endemic to ...
**************Family †Macraucheniidae
**************Family †Notonychopidae
**************Family †Adianthidae
*************Superfamily †Proterotherioidea
**************Family †Proterotheriidae
************Order †Notoungulata: notoungulates
*************Suborder †Notioprogonia
**************Family †Henricosborniidae
**************Family †Notostylopidae
*************Suborder †Toxodontia
**************Family †Isotemnidae
**************Family †Leontiniidae
**************Family †Notohippidae
**************Family †Toxodontidae
**************Family †Homalodotheriidae
*************Suborder †Typotheria
**************Family †Archaeopithecidae
**************Family †Oldfieldthomasiidae
**************Family †Interatheriidae
**************Family †Campanorcidae
**************Family †Mesotheriidae
*************Suborder †Hegetotheria
**************Family †Archaeohyracidae
**************Family †Hegetotheriidae
************Order †Astrapotheria
*************Family †Eoastrapostylopidae
*************Family †Trigonostylopidae
*************Family †Astrapotheriidae
************Order †Xenungulata
*************Family †Carodniidae
************Order †Pyrotheria
*************Family †Pyrotheriidae
***********Mirorder Altungulata
************Order Perissodactyla: odd-toed ungulates
*************Suborder Hippomorpha
**************Family Equidae
Equidae (sometimes known as the horse family) is the taxonomic family of horses and related animals, including the extant horses, asses, and zebras, and many other species known only from fossils. All extant species are in the genus '' Equus'', ...
: horses
**************Family †Palaeotheriidae
*************Suborder Ceratomorpha
**************Infraorder †Selenida
***************Superfamily †Brontotherioidea
****************Family †Brontotheriidae
****************Family †Anchilophidae
***************Superfamily †Chalicotherioidea
****************Family †Eomoropidae
****************Family †Chalicotheriidae
**************Infraorder Tapiromorpha
***************Superfamily Rhinocerotoidea
****************Family †Hyracodontidae
****************Family Rhinocerotidae
A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member of any of the extinct species ...
: rhinoceroses
***************Superfamily Tapiroidea
****************Family †Helaletidae
****************Family †Isectolophidae
****************Family †Lophiodontidae
****************Family †Deperetellidae
****************Family †Lophialetidae
****************Family Tapiridae
Tapirs ( ) are large, herbivorous mammals belonging to the family Tapiridae. They are similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile nose trunk. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South and Central America, with one species inhabi ...
: tapirs
************Order Uranotheria: elephants, manatees, hyraxes, and relatives
*************Suborder Hyracoidea
Hyraxes (), also called dassies, are small, thickset, herbivorous mammals in the order Hyracoidea. Hyraxes are well-furred, rotund animals with short tails. Typically, they measure between long and weigh between . They are superficially simila ...
***************Family †Pliohyracidae
***************Family Procaviidae
Hyraxes (), also called dassies, are small, thickset, herbivorous mammals in the order Hyracoidea. Hyraxes are well-furred, rotund animals with short tails. Typically, they measure between long and weigh between . They are superficially simi ...
: hyraxes
*************Suborder †Embrithopoda
**************Family †Phenacolophidae
**************Family †Arsinoitheriidae
*************Suborder Tethytheria
**************Infraorder Sirenia
The Sirenia (), commonly referred to as sea-cows or sirenians, are an order of fully aquatic, herbivorous mammals that inhabit swamps, rivers, estuaries, marine wetlands, and coastal marine waters. The Sirenia currently comprise two distinct ...
: manatees, dugong, and sea cow
***************Family †Prorastomidae
***************Family Dugongidae
Dugongidae is a family in the order of Sirenia. The family has one surviving species, the dugong (''Dugong dugon''), one recently extinct species, Steller's sea cow (''Hydrodamalis gigas''), and a number of extinct genera known from fossil r ...
: dugongs
***************Family Trichechidae
Trichechidae is a family of sirenians that includes all living manatees and several extinct genera.
Systematics
TRICHECHIDAE
*MiosireninaeM. Voss. 2014. On the invalidity of Halitherium schinzii Kaup, 1838 (Mammalia, Sirenia), with comments o ...
: manatees
**************Infraorder Behemota
***************Parvorder †Desmostylia
****************Family †Desmostylidae
***************Parvorder Proboscidea
****************Family †Anthracobunidae
****************Family †Moeritheriidae
****************Family †Numidotheriidae
****************Family †Barytheriidae
****************Family †Deinotheriidae
****************Family †Palaeomastodontidae
****************Family †Phiomiidae
****************Family †Hemimastodontidae
****************Superfamily ‡Mammutoidea
*****************Family †Mammutidae: mastodons and relatives
****************Superfamily Elephantoidea
*****************Family †Gomphotheriidae: gomphotheres
*****************Family Elephantidae
Elephantidae is a family of large, herbivorous proboscidean mammals collectively called elephants and mammoths. These are terrestrial large mammals with a snout modified into a trunk and teeth modified into tusks. Most genera and species in the ...
: modern elephants
Luo, Kielan-Jaworowska, and Cifelli classification
Several important fossil mammal discoveries have been made that have led researchers to question many of the relationships proposed by McKenna and Bell (1997). Additionally, researchers are subjecting taxonomic hypotheses to more rigorous cladistic analyses of early mammal fossils. Luo et al. (2002) summarized existing ideas and proposed new ideas of relationships among mammals at the most Basal (phylogenetics), basal level. They argued that the term mammal should be defined based on characters (especially the dentary-squamosal jaw articulation) instead of a crown-based definition (the group that contains most recent common ancestor of monotremes and therians and all of its descendants). Their definition of Mammalia is roughly equal to the Mammaliaformes as defined by McKenna and Bell (1997) and other authors. They also define their taxonomic levels as clades and do not apply Rank (zoology), Linnean hierarchies.
Mammalia
*†''Sinoconodon'' - earliest and most basal of mammals
*Unnamed clade 1 - a clade that contains all other mammals. These are characterized by determinant growth and occlusal features of the cheek teeth.
**†Morganucodontidae - morganucodontids, including †''Morganucodon'', †''Megazostrodon'', and others
**†Docodonta - docodonts, including †''Haldanodon'' and †''Castorocauda'' (Ji et al., 2006)
**Unnamed clade 2 - a clade containing all living mammals and some fossil relatives. It is characterized by the loss of a postdentary trough and a widened braincase.
***†''Hadrocodium''
***†''Kuehneotherium''
***Crown-group Mammalia
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur o ...
- the group that contains most recent common ancestor of monotremes and therians and all of its descendants. This group is defined by additional characters relating the occlusion of Molar (tooth), molars and the presence of a well-developed masseteric fossa.
****Australosphenida - a clade that contains monotremes and their fossil relatives. These fossils include †''Ambondro'', †''Asfaltomylos'', †''Ausktribosphenos'', and †''Bishops''. If correct, this clade represents an independent evolution of the tribosphenic molar in Gondwana, southern continents.
****Trechnotheria
Trechnotheria is a group of mammals that includes the therians and some fossil mammals from the Mesozoic Era. In the Jurassic through Cretaceous periods, the group was endemic to what would be Asia and Africa.
Trechnotheria has been assigned va ...
- Theria
Theria (; Greek: , wild beast) is a subclass of mammals amongst the Theriiformes. Theria includes the eutherians (including the placental mammals) and the metatherians (including the marsupials) but excludes the egg-laying monotremes.
Ch ...
ns, Spalacotheriidae, spalacotheriids and their relatives. They are characterized by features of the scapula, tibia, and humerus.
*****† Spalacotheriidae - including ''Akidolestes'', ''Zhangheotherium'', and ''Maotherium''.
*****Cladotheria
Cladotheria is a clade (sometimes ranked as a legion) of mammals. It contains modern therian mammals (marsupials and placentals) and several extinct groups, such as the dryolestoids, amphitheriids and peramurids. The clade was named in 1975 by M ...
- Therians, Dryolestidae, dryolestids, and their relatives. They are characterized by features of the tribosphenic molar and the angular process of the dentary.
******†Dryolestidae
Dryolestidae is an extinct family of Mesozoic mammals, known from the Middle Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous of the North Hemisphere. The oldest known member, '' Anthracolestes'', is known from the Middle Jurassic Itat Formation of Western Siber ...
******†''Amphitherium'' - ''incertae sedis'' (it may be a prototribosphenidan)
******Prototribosphenida - Therians and fossil relatives including †''Vincelestes''. Characterized by features of the cochlea including coiling.
*******†''Vincelestes''
*******Zatheria
Cladotheria is a clade (sometimes ranked as a legion) of mammals. It contains modern therian mammals (marsupials and placentals) and several extinct groups, such as the dryolestoids, amphitheriids and peramurids. The clade was named in 1975 by M ...
- Therians and fossil relatives including the "peramurids". Characterized by the presence of wear in the talonid of the lower molars.
********†"Peramuridae
The family Peramuridae is a family of mammals that lived in the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous
The Early Cretaceous (geochronology, geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphy, chronostratigraphic name), is the earlie ...
" - †''Peramus'' and relatives. Known only from preserved mandibles and distinctly zatherian molars.
********Boreosphenida - Therians and fossil relatives including †''Kielantherium''. They are characterized by molar features.
*********†''Kielantherium''
*********†Deltatheroida
Deltatheroida is an extinct group of basal metatherians that were distantly related to modern marsupials. The majority of known members of the group lived in the Cretaceous; one species, '' Gurbanodelta kara'', is known from the late Paleocene ( ...
including †''Deltatheridium'' - ''incertae sedis'' (it may represent a metatherian)
*********Crown-group Theria
Theria (; Greek: , wild beast) is a subclass of mammals amongst the Theriiformes. Theria includes the eutherians (including the placental mammals) and the metatherians (including the marsupials) but excludes the egg-laying monotremes.
Ch ...
- the group that contains most recent common ancestor of marsupials and placental
Placental mammals (infraclass Placentalia ) are one of the three extant subdivisions of the class Mammalia, the other two being Monotremata and Marsupial
Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsup ...
s and all of its descendants. Characterized by a host of molar features, aspects of the alispenoid, and aspects of the talus bone, astragalus region.
****†Eutriconodonta - ''incertae sedis''. Triconodonts appear to be a member of the crown-Mammalia clade, but their relationships within it are unknown. It is also not certain that they represent a monophyly, monophyletic group. Examples include ''Repenomamus''.
***†Multituberculata
Multituberculata (commonly known as multituberculates, named for the multiple tubercles of their teeth) is an extinct order of rodent-like mammals with a fossil record spanning over 130 million years. They first appeared in the Middle Jurassic, a ...
- ''incertae sedis''. Luo e al. (2002) argue that multituberculates cannot be confidently placed in a particular clade of mammals. They suggest that they represent either basal mammals or are sister to the Trechnotheria.
Simplified classification for non-specialists
The following classification is a simplified version based on current understanding suitable for non-specialists who want to understand how living genera are related to each other. The classification ignores differences in levels and thus cannot be used to estimate the respective distances between taxa. It also ignores taxa that became extinct in pre-historic times. Finally, English names are preferred whenever they exist. This makes it especially suited for non-specialists who wish to gain an easy overview. For the full picture, the non-simplified versions above should be consulted.
*Monotremes (prototheria): echidnas and platypus
**Platypus
**Echidnas (tachyglossids)
*Live-bearing mammals (theria)
**Marsupials
***Opossums (didelphids)
***Shrew opossums (caenolestids)
***Australodelphia: Australian marsupials and monito del Monte
****Monito del Monte
****Dasyuromorphs
*****Dasyurids: antechinuses, quolls, dunnarts, Tasmanian devil, and allies
*****Numbat
****Peramelemorphs: bilbies and bandicoots
*****Bilbies (thylacomyids)
*****Bandicoots (peramelids)
****Marsupial moles (notoryctids)
****Diprotodonts
*****Koala
*****Wombats (vombatids)
*****Phalangerids: brushtail possums and cuscuses
*****Pygmy possums (burramyids)
*****Honey possum
*****Petaurids: striped and Leadbeater's possums, and yellow-bellied, suger, mahogany and squirrel glider
*****Ringtailed possums (pseudocheirids)
*****Potorids: potoroos, rat kangaroos and bettongs
*****Acrobatids: feathertail glider and feather-tailed possum
*****Musky rat-kangaroo
*****Macropodids: kangaroos, wallabies and allies
**Placentals
***Atlantic placentals (atlantogenatans)
****Afroplacentals (afrotherians)
*****Afroinsectiphilians: elephant shrews, tenrecs, otter shrews, golden moles, and aardvark
******Elephant shrews (macroscelidids)
******Afrosoricids: tenrecs and golden moles
*******Tenrecids: tenrecs and otter shrews
*******Golden moles (chrysochlorids)
******Aardvark
*****Paenungulates: hyraxes, elephants, dugongs and manatees
******Hyraxes or dassies (procaviids)
******Elephants (elephantids)
******Sirenians: dugong and manatees
*******Dugong
*******Manatees (trichechids)
****Xenarthrans
*****Pilosans: sloths and anteaters
******Anteaters (vermilinguans)
*******Silky anteater
*******Myrmecophagids: giant anteater and tamanduas
******Sloths (folivorans)
*******Three-toed sloths (bradypodids)
*******Two-toed sloths (megalonychids)
*****Armadillos (dasypodids)
***Northern placentals (boreoeutherians)
****Supraprimates (euarchontoglires)
*****Euarchontans: treeshrews, colugos and primates
******Treeshrews (scandentians)
*******Tupaiids: all treeshrews except pen-tailed
*******Pen-tailed treeshrew
******Colugos or flying lemurs (cynocephalids)
******Primates
*******Strepsirrhines: lemur- and loris-like primates
********Lemur-like primates (lemuriforms)
*********Cheirogaleids: dwarf lemurs and mouse-lemurs
*********Aye-aye
*********True lemurs (lemurids)
*********Sportive lemurs (lepilemurids)
*********Indriids: woolly lemurs and allies
********Loris-like primates (lorisiforms)
*********Lorisids: lorises, pottos and allies
*********Galagos (galagids)
*******Haplorhines: tarsiers, monkeys and apes
********Tarsiers (tarsiids)
********Anthropoid primates
*********New World monkeys (platyrrhines)
**********Callitrichids: marmosets and tamarins
**********Cebids: capuchins and squirrel monkeys
**********Aotids: night or owl monkeys
**********Pitheciids: titis, sakis and uakaris
**********Atelids: howler, spider, woolly spider, and woolly monkeys
*********Catarrhines
**********Old World monkeys (cercopithecids)
**********Hominoid primates
***********Gibbons (hylobatids)
***********Great apes (hominids): incl. Humans
*****Glires: pikas, rabbits, hares, and rodents
******Lagomorphs: pikas, rabbits and hares
*******Leporids: rabbits and hares
*******Pikas (ochotonids)
******Rodents
*******Anomalure-like rodents (anomaluromorphs): Scaly-tailed squirrels and springhares
********Scaly-tailed squirrels or anomalures (anomalurids)
********Springhares (pedetids)
*******Beaver-like rodents (castorimorphs)
********Beavers (castorids)
********Gopher-like rodents (geomyoid rodents)
*********Pocket or true gophers (geomyids)
*********Heteromyids: kangaroo rats and kangaroo mice
*******Porcupine-like rodents (hystricomorphs)
********Laotian rock rat
********Gundis (ctenodactylids)
********Hystricognaths
*********African mole rats (bathyergids)
*********Old World porcupines (hystricids)
*********Dassie rat
*********Cane rats (thryonomyids)
*********Cavy-like rodents (caviomorphs)
**********Chinchilla rats (abrocomids)
**********Hutias (capromyids)
**********Cavies (caviids): incl. Guinea pigs and capybara
**********Chinchillids: chinchillas and viscachas
**********Tuco-tucos (ctenomyids)
**********Agoutis (dasyproctids)
**********Pacas (cuniculids)
**********Pacarana
**********Spiny rats (echymyids)
**********New World porcupines (erethizontids)
**********Myocastorids: nutria and coypu
**********Octodonts (octodontids): Andean rock-rats, degus and viscacha-rats
*******Mouse-like rodents (myomorphs)
********Dipodids: jerboas and jumping mice
********Muroid rodents
*********Mouse-like hamsters (calomyscids)
*********Cricetids: hamsters, New World rats and mice, voles
*********Murids: true mice and rats, gerbils, spiny mice, crested rat
*********Nesomyids: climbing mice, rock mice, white-tailed rat, Malagasy rats and mice
*********Spiny dormice (platacanthomyids)
*********Spalacids: mole rats, bamboo rats, and zokors
*******Squirrel-like rodents (sciuromorphs)
********Mountain beaver
********Dormice (glirids)
********Squirrels (sciurids): incl. chipmunks, prairie dogs, and marmots
****Laurasian placentals (laurasiatherians)
*****Hedgehogs (erinaceids)
*****Soricomorphs: moles, shrews, solenodons
******Shrews (soricids)
******Moles (talpids)
******Solenodons (solenodontids)
*****Ferungulates: ungulates, cetaceans, bats, pangolins and carnivorans
******Cetartiodactyls: even-toed ungulates and cetaceans
*******Camelids: camels and llamas
*******Swine (suinans): pigs and peccaries
********Pigs (suids)
********Peccaries (tayassuids)
*******Cetruminantians: cetaceans, hippos and ruminants
********Cetancodonts: cetaceans and hippos
*********Cetaceans: Whales, dolphins and porpoises
**********Baleen whales (mysticetes)
***********Balaenids: right whales and bowhead whale
***********Rorquals (balaenopterids)
***********Gray whale
***********Pygmy right whale
**********Toothed whales (odontocetes)
***********Dolphins (delphinids)
***********Monodontids: beluga and narwhal
************Beluga
************Narwhal
***********Porpoises (phocoenids)
***********Sperm whale
***********Kogiids: pygmy and dwarf sperm whale
***********River dolphins (platanistoid whales)
************Iniids: Amazon and Bolivian river dolphin
************La Plata dolphin
************Platanistids: Ganges and Indus river dolphins
***********Beaked whales (ziphids)
*********Hippos (hippopotamids)
********Ruminantiamorphs: chevrotains, pronghorn, giraffes, musk deer, deer, and bovids
*********Chevrotains (tragulids)
*********Pecorans
**********Pronghorn
**********Giraffids: giraffe and okapi
**********Musk deer (moschids)
**********Deer (cervids)
**********Bovids: cattle, goats, sheep and antelope
******Pegasoferans: bats, odd-toed ungulates, pangolins and carnivorans
*******Bats (chiropterans)
********Megabats (pteropodids)
********Microbats (microchiropterans)
*********Sac-winged or sheath-tailed bats (emballonurids)
*********Rhinopomatoid bats
**********Mouse-tailed bats (rhinopomatids)
**********Bumblebee bat or Kitti's hog-nosed bat
*********Rhinolophoid bats
**********Horseshoe bats (rhinolophids)
**********Hollow-faced or slit-faced bats (nycterids)
**********False vampires (megadermatids)
*********Vesper bats or evening bats (vespertilionids)
*********Molossoid bats
**********Free-tailed bats (molossids)
**********Pallid bats (antrozoids)
*********Nataloid bats
**********Funnel-eared bats (natalids)
**********Sucker-footed bats (myzopodids)
**********Disc-winged bats (thyropterids)
**********Smoky bats (furipterids)
*********Noctilionoid bats
**********Bulldog or fisherman bats (noctilionids)
**********New Zealand short-tailed bats (mystacinids)
**********Ghost-faced or moustached bats (mormoopids)
**********Leaf-nosed bats (phyllostomids)
*******Zooamatans: odd-toed ungulates, pangolins and carnivorans
********Odd-toed ungulates (perissodactyls)
*********Horses (equids)
*********Ceratomorphs
**********Tapirs (tapirids)
**********Rhinoceroses (rhinocerotids)
********Ferans
*********Pangolins or scaly anteaters (manids)
*********Carnivorans
**********Cat-like carnivorans (feliforms)
***********African palm civet
***********Feloid carnivorans
************Asiatic linsangs (prionodontids)
************Cats (felids)
***********Viverroid carnivorans
************Viverrids: civets and allies
************Herpestoid carnivorans
*************Hyaenids: hyenas and aardwolf
*************Malagasy carnivorans (euplerids)
*************Herpestids: mongooses and allies
**********Dog-like carnivorans (caniforms)
***********Canids: dogs and allies
***********Arctoid carnivorans
************Bears (ursids)
************Musteloid carnivorans
*************Red panda
*************Mephitids: skunks and stink badgers
*************Mustelids: weasels, martens, badgers, wolverines, minks, ferrets and otters
*************Procyonids: raccoons and allies
************Pinnipeds
*************Walrus
*************Otariids: sea lions, eared seals, fur seals
*************True seals (phocids)
See also
*Animal
*List of mammals
*List of prehistoric mammals
*Mammal
References
*
* Wilson, Don E. and Deeann M. Reeder (eds). (1993.) ''Mammal Species of the World''. Smithsonian Institution Press, 1206 pp.
* McKenna, Malcolm C. and Bell, Susan K. (1997.) ''Classification of Mammals Above the Species Level.'' Columbia University Press, New York, 631 pp.
* Nowak, Ronald M. (1999.) ''Walker's Mammals of the World'', 6th edition. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1936 pp.
* Vaughan, Terry A., James M. Ryan and Nicholas J. Capzaplewski. (2000.) ''Mammalogy: Fourth Edition''. Saunders College Publishing, 565 pp. (Brooks Cole, 1999)
*
*
* {{cite journal , last1=Ji , first1=Q. , last2=Luo , first2=Z.-X. , last3=Yuan , first3=C.-X. , last4=Tabrum , first4=A. R. , year=2006 , title=A swimming mammaliaform from the Middle Jurassic and ecomorphological diversification of early mammals , journal=Science , volume=311 , issue=5764 , pages=1123–1127 , doi=10.1126/science.1123026 , pmid=16497926, bibcode=2006Sci...311.1123J , s2cid=46067702
Mammal taxonomy, Mammal classification
Systems of animal taxonomy