Arctoidea

Arctoidea
Temporal range: Eocene - Holocene, 46–0 Ma
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Carnivora
Clade: Canoidea
Infraorder: Arctoidea
Flower, 1869
Subclades

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 from the Eocene, 46 million years ago, to the present.[2] The oldest group of the clade is the bears, as their CMAH gene is still intact. The gene became non-functional in the common ancestor of the Mustelida (the musteloids and pinnipeds).[3] Arctoids are caniforms, along with dogs (canids) and extinct bear dogs (Amphicyonidae). The earliest caniforms were superficially similar to martens, which are tree-dwelling mustelids. Together with feliforms, caniforms compose the order Carnivora; sometimes Arctoidea can be considered a separate suborder from Caniformia and a sister taxon to Feliformia.

  1. ^ de Queiroz, K.; Cantino, P. D.; Gauthier, J. A. (2020). Phylonyms: A Companion to the PhyloCode. CRC Press. ISBN 978-0429821219.
  2. ^ "Paleobiology Database: Arctoidea Basic info"[permanent dead link].
  3. ^ Ng, Preston S.K.; Böhm, Raphael; Hartley-Tassell, Lauren E.; Steen, Jason A.; Wang, Hui; Lukowski, Samuel W.; Hawthorne, Paula L.; Trezise, Ann E.O.; Coloe, Peter J.; Grimmond, Sean M.; Haselhorst, Thomas; von Itzstein, Mark; Paton, Adrienne W.; Paton, James C.; Jennings, Michael P. (2014). "Ferrets exclusively synthesize Neu5Ac and express naturally humanized influenza a virus receptors". Nature Communications. 5: 5750. doi:10.1038/ncomms6750. PMC 4351649. PMID 25517696.