Musteloidea
Superfamily of carnivoran mammals
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Musteloidea is a superfamily of carnivoran mammals united by shared characteristics of the skull and teeth. Musteloids are the sister group of pinnipeds, the group which includes seals and allies.[1]
| Musteloidea Temporal range: | |
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| Left-right: spotted skunk, red panda, wolverine and raccoon; representing the families Mephitidae, Ailuridae, Mustelidae and Procyonidae. | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Suborder: | Caniformia |
| Clade: | Canoidea |
| Infraorder: | Arctoidea |
| Parvorder: | Mustelida |
| Superfamily: | Musteloidea Fischer, 1817 |
| Families | |
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Taxonomy
Musteloidea comprises the following families:
- Mephitidae, skunks and stink badgers.
- Mustelidae, the weasel (mustelid) family, including new- and old-world badgers, ferrets and polecats, fishers, grisons and ratels, martens and sables, minks, river and sea otters, stoats and ermines, tayras and wolverines.
- Procyonidae, raccoons and raccoon-like procyonids, including coatis, kinkajous, olingos, the olinguito, ringtails and cacomistles.
Evolution
In North America, ursids (bears) and musteloids first appeared in the Chadronian[citation needed] of the late Eocene, and in early-Oligocene Europe, immediately following the Grande Coupure extinction event.
The following cladogram is based on molecular phylogeny of six genes in Flynn (2005),[2] with the musteloids updated following the multigene analysis of Law et al. (2018).[3]
| Caniformia |
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