The

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...

Insectivora (from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

''insectum'' "insect" and ''vorare'' "to eat") is a now-abandoned biological grouping within the class of mammals. Some species have now been moved out, leaving the remaining ones in the order Eulipotyphla, within the larger clade

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 ungula ...

, which makes up one of the most basic

clades A clade (), also known as a monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that are monophyletic – that is, composed of a common ancestor and all its lineal descendants – on a phylogenetic tree. Rather than the English term ...

of placental mammals.

History

Before the era of widespread DNA sequencing, the grouping was used as a

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage of organisms or other evolving elements that is of mixed evolutionary origin. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as homoplasies, which are explained as a result of conver ...

taxon for a variety of small to very small, relatively unspecialised mammals that feed upon insects. Since any primitive-looking fossil group of placental mammals was commonly assigned to this order for convenience, it was held to constitute the basal stock out of which other placental orders had evolved. Therefore, at its widest extent, the order Insectivora represented an evolutionary grade rather than a clade. Taxonomy has been refined in recent years, and

treeshrew The treeshrews (or tree shrews or banxrings) are small mammals native to the tropical forests of South and Southeast Asia. They make up the entire order Scandentia, which split into two families: the Tupaiidae (19 species, "ordinary" treeshrew ...

elephant shrew Elephant shrews, also called jumping shrews or sengis, are small insectivorous mammals native to Africa, belonging to the family Macroscelididae, in the order Macroscelidea. Their traditional common English name "elephant shrew" comes from a pe ...

s, and colugos have now been placed in separate orders, as have many fossil groups that were formerly included here. For some time it was held that the remaining insectivoran families constituted a

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 ...

grouping, or clade, to which the name Lipotyphla had long been applied. However, molecular evidence indicated that Chrysochloridae ( golden moles), Tenrecidae ( tenrecs), and Potamogalidae ( otter shrews) should also be separated as a new 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 m ...

. Erinaceidae (

hedgehog A hedgehog is a spiny mammal of the subfamily Erinaceinae, in the eulipotyphlan family Erinaceidae. There are seventeen species of hedgehog in five genera found throughout parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and in New Zealand by introduct ...

s) was then also split off into a separate order ( Erinaceomorpha) from the remainder (termed Soricomorpha), comprising the families Soricidae (

shrew Shrews (family Soricidae) are small mole-like mammals classified in the order Eulipotyphla. True shrews are not to be confused with treeshrews, otter shrews, elephant shrews, West Indies shrews, or marsupial shrews, which belong to diffe ...

s), Talpidae ( moles), Solenodontidae, and Nesophontidae. These two orders then replaced Insectivora. This scheme was undermined when molecular studies indicated that Soricomorpha is

paraphyletic In taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...

, because Soricidae shared a more recent common ancestor with Erinaceidae than with other soricomorphs. However, the combination of Soricidae and Erinaceidae, referred to as order Eulipotyphla, has been shown to be monophyletic.

Classification

* ORDER EULIPOTYPHLA (remnant of 'Insectivora') ** Family Erinaceidae *** Subfamily Erinaceinae:

s *** Subfamily Hylomyinae: moonrats and gymnures ** Family Soricidae *** Subfamily Crocidurinae:

white-toothed shrew The white-toothed shrews or Crocidurinae are one of three subfamilies of the shrew family Soricidae. The outer layer of these shrews' teeth is white, unlike that of the red-toothed shrews. These species are typically found in Africa and souther ...

s *** Subfamily Soricinae: red-toothed shrews *** Subfamily Myosoricinae:

African white-toothed shrew According to the current taxonomy, the Myosoricinae are a subfamily of shrews. As such, they form one of three main types of shrews, the other two being the red-toothed shrews and the white-toothed shrews. They are the only one of the three t ...

s ** Family Talpidae *** Subfamily Desmaninae: desmans *** Subfamily Talpinae: moles *** Subfamily Uropsilinae:

shrew moles The shrew moles or shrew-like moles (''Uropsilus'') are shrew-like members of the mole family of mammals endemic to the forested, high-alpine region bordering China, Myanmar, and Vietnam. They possess a long snout, a long slender tail, external ...

** Family Solenodontidae: solenodons ** Family Nesophontidae: extinct West Indian shrews Family-level cladogram of extant insectivoran relationships, following Roca et al.: These families have been placed within Insectivora in the past: :* Family Chrysochloridae ( golden moles) :* Family Tenrecidae ( tenrecs) :*Family Potamogalidae ( otter shrews) :* Family Macroscelididae (

s) :* Family Tupaiidae ( true treeshrews) :*Family Ptilocercidae ( pen-tailed treeshrew) :* Family Cynocephalidae ( colugos) Not to be confused with

insectivore A robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects. The first vertebrate insectivores wer ...

s (the eaters of insects considered as a feeding behavior), many of which do not belong to Eulipotyphla or the other taxa formerly included within Insectivora.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Obsolete mammal taxa Polyphyletic groups

History

Classification

See also

References

External links