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African civet
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The African civet /ˈsɪvɪt/ is the largest representative of the African Viverridae and the sole member of its genus. It is considered common and widely distributed in sub-Saharan Africa and it is primarily nocturnal and spends the day sleeping in dense vegetation. It is a mammal that has a unique coloration, the black and white stripes and blotches covering the coarse pelage of the animal are extremely variable. The black bands surrounding its eyes closely resemble those of the raccoon, other distinguishing features are its disproportionately large hindquarters and its erectile dorsal crest. The African civet is an omnivorous generalist, taking small vertebrates, invertebrates, eggs, carrion and it is capable of taking on poisonous invertebrates and snakes. Prey is primarily detected by smell and sound rather than by sight and it prefers riverine habitats and woodlands. Like all civets it has perineal glands that produce a fluid known as civet and it is used in the perfume industry. The scientific name of the African civet is Civettictis civetta and it is the sole member of its genus, and a member of the family Viverridae. The African civet was first described by German naturalist Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber in 1776 as Viverra civetta, in 1915, the English zoologist Reginald Innes Pocock placed the African civet in its own genus, Civettictis. A1969 study noted that this civet showed enough differences from the rest of the viverrines in terms of dentition to be classified under its own genus, the generic name Civettictis is a fusion of the French civette and the Greek ictis, meaning weasel. The specific name civetta and the name civet come from the French civette or the Arabic zabād or sinnawr al-zabād. The civet has been a domestic animal in Africa since ancient times. A2006 phylogenetic study showed that the African civet is closely related to the genus Viverra and it was estimated that the Civettictis-Viverra clade diverged from Viverricula around 16.2 Mya, the African civet split from Viverra 12.3 Mya. The authors suggested that the subfamily Viverrinae should be bifurcated into Genettinae and Viverrinae, the following cladogram is based on this study. The following six subspecies are identified, The African civet is the largest viverrid in Africa, among the extant viverrids, only the binturong matches or exceeds the African civet in size. While females are sometimes credited as slightly larger, there are no discernible differences in measurements between sexes. Weight can range from 7 to 20 kg, with a mass of about 12.5 kg. Head-and-body length is 67 to 84 cm, while the tail is 34 to 47 cm, Civettictis civetta is a stocky animal with a long body and appears short-legged for its size although its hind limbs are noticeably larger and more powerful
2.
Taxonomy (biology)
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Taxonomy is the science of defining groups of biological organisms on the basis of shared characteristics and giving names to those groups. The exact definition of taxonomy varies from source to source, but the core of the remains, the conception, naming. There is some disagreement as to whether biological nomenclature is considered a part of taxonomy, the broadest meaning of taxonomy is used here. The word taxonomy was introduced in 1813 by Candolle, in his Théorie élémentaire de la botanique, the term alpha taxonomy is primarily used today to refer to the discipline of finding, describing, and naming taxa, particularly species. In earlier literature, the term had a different meaning, referring to morphological taxonomy, ideals can, it may be said, never be completely realized. They have, however, a value of acting as permanent stimulants. Some of us please ourselves by thinking we are now groping in a beta taxonomy, turrill thus explicitly excludes from alpha taxonomy various areas of study that he includes within taxonomy as a whole, such as ecology, physiology, genetics, and cytology. He further excludes phylogenetic reconstruction from alpha taxonomy, thus, Ernst Mayr in 1968 defined beta taxonomy as the classification of ranks higher than species. This activity is what the term denotes, it is also referred to as beta taxonomy. How species should be defined in a group of organisms gives rise to practical and theoretical problems that are referred to as the species problem. The scientific work of deciding how to define species has been called microtaxonomy, by extension, macrotaxonomy is the study of groups at higher taxonomic ranks, from subgenus and above only, than species. While some descriptions of taxonomic history attempt to date taxonomy to ancient civilizations, earlier works were primarily descriptive, and focused on plants that were useful in agriculture or medicine. There are a number of stages in scientific thinking. Early taxonomy was based on criteria, the so-called artificial systems. Later came systems based on a complete consideration of the characteristics of taxa, referred to as natural systems, such as those of de Jussieu, de Candolle and Bentham. The publication of Charles Darwins Origin of Species led to new ways of thinking about classification based on evolutionary relationships and this was the concept of phyletic systems, from 1883 onwards. This approach was typified by those of Eichler and Engler, the advent of molecular genetics and statistical methodology allowed the creation of the modern era of phylogenetic systems based on cladistics, rather than morphology alone. Taxonomy has been called the worlds oldest profession, and naming and classifying our surroundings has likely been taking place as long as mankind has been able to communicate
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Animal
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Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia. The animal kingdom emerged as a clade within Apoikozoa as the group to the choanoflagellates. Animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and independently at some point in their lives and their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later in their lives. All animals are heterotrophs, they must ingest other organisms or their products for sustenance, most known animal phyla appeared in the fossil record as marine species during the Cambrian explosion, about 542 million years ago. Animals can be divided broadly into vertebrates and invertebrates, vertebrates have a backbone or spine, and amount to less than five percent of all described animal species. They include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals, the remaining animals are the invertebrates, which lack a backbone. These include molluscs, arthropods, annelids, nematodes, flatworms, cnidarians, ctenophores, the study of animals is called zoology. The word animal comes from the Latin animalis, meaning having breath, the biological definition of the word refers to all members of the kingdom Animalia, encompassing creatures as diverse as sponges, jellyfish, insects, and humans. Aristotle divided the world between animals and plants, and this was followed by Carl Linnaeus, in the first hierarchical classification. In Linnaeuss original scheme, the animals were one of three kingdoms, divided into the classes of Vermes, Insecta, Pisces, Amphibia, Aves, and Mammalia. Since then the last four have all been subsumed into a single phylum, in 1874, Ernst Haeckel divided the animal kingdom into two subkingdoms, Metazoa and Protozoa. The protozoa were later moved to the kingdom Protista, leaving only the metazoa, thus Metazoa is now considered a synonym of Animalia. Animals have several characteristics that set apart from other living things. Animals are eukaryotic and multicellular, which separates them from bacteria and they are heterotrophic, generally digesting food in an internal chamber, which separates them from plants and algae. They are also distinguished from plants, algae, and fungi by lacking cell walls. All animals are motile, if only at life stages. In most animals, embryos pass through a stage, which is a characteristic exclusive to animals. With a few exceptions, most notably the sponges and Placozoa and these include muscles, which are able to contract and control locomotion, and nerve tissues, which send and process signals
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Mammal
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Mammals are any vertebrates within the class Mammalia, a clade of endothermic amniotes distinguished from reptiles by the possession of a neocortex, hair, three middle ear bones and mammary glands. All female mammals nurse their young with milk, secreted from the mammary glands, Mammals include the largest animals on the planet, the great whales. The basic body type is a quadruped, but some mammals are adapted for life at sea, in the air, in trees. The largest group of mammals, the placentals, have a placenta, Mammals range in size from the 30–40 mm bumblebee bat to the 30-meter blue whale. With the exception of the five species of monotreme, all modern mammals give birth to live young, most mammals, including the six most species-rich orders, belong to the placental group. The largest orders are the rodents, bats and Soricomorpha, the next three biggest orders, depending on the biological classification scheme used, are the Primates, the Cetartiodactyla, and the Carnivora. Living mammals are divided into the Yinotheria and Theriiformes There are around 5450 species of mammal, in some classifications, extant mammals are divided into two subclasses, the Prototheria, that is, the order Monotremata, and the Theria, or the infraclasses Metatheria and Eutheria. The marsupials constitute the group of the Metatheria, and include all living metatherians as well as many extinct ones. Much of the changes reflect the advances of cladistic analysis and molecular genetics, findings from molecular genetics, for example, have prompted adopting new groups, such as the Afrotheria, and abandoning traditional groups, such as the Insectivora. The mammals represent the only living Synapsida, which together with the Sauropsida form the Amniota clade, the early synapsid mammalian ancestors were sphenacodont pelycosaurs, a group that produced the non-mammalian Dimetrodon. At the end of the Carboniferous period, this group diverged from the line that led to todays reptiles. Some mammals are intelligent, with some possessing large brains, self-awareness, Mammals can communicate and vocalize in several different ways, including the production of ultrasound, scent-marking, alarm signals, singing, and echolocation. Mammals can organize themselves into fission-fusion societies, harems, and hierarchies, most mammals are polygynous, but some can be monogamous or polyandrous. They provided, and continue to provide, power for transport and agriculture, as well as commodities such as meat, dairy products, wool. Mammals are hunted or raced for sport, and are used as model organisms in science, Mammals have been depicted in art since Palaeolithic times, and appear in literature, film, mythology, and religion. Defaunation of mammals is primarily driven by anthropogenic factors, such as poaching and habitat destruction, Mammal classification has been through several iterations since Carl Linnaeus initially defined the class. No classification system is accepted, McKenna & Bell and Wilson & Reader provide useful recent compendiums. Though field work gradually made Simpsons classification outdated, it remains the closest thing to a classification of mammals
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Carnivora
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Carnivora is a diverse scrotiferan order that includes over 280 species of placental mammals. Its members are referred to as carnivorans, whereas the word carnivore can refer to any meat-eating organism.9 m in length. Some carnivorans, such as cats and pinnipeds, depend entirely on meat for their nutrition, carnivorans have teeth and claws adapted for catching and eating other animals. Many hunt in packs and are social animals, giving them an advantage over larger prey, carnivorans are split into two suborders, feliforms and caniforms. Carnivorans all share the same arrangement of teeth in which the last upper premolar, carnivorans have had this arrangement for over 60 million years with many adaptions, and these dental adaptions help identify carnivoran species and groupings of species. Carnivorans evolved in North America out of members of the family Miacidae about 42 million years ago and they soon split into cat-like and dog-like forms. Their molecular phylogeny shows the extant Carnivora are a monophyletic group, the last premolar of the upper jaw and first molar of the lower are termed the carnassials or sectorial teeth. These blade-like teeth occlude with an action for shearing and shredding meat. Carnassials are most highly developed in the Felidae and the least developed in the Ursidae, carnivorans have six incisors and two conical canines in each jaw. The only two exceptions to this are the sea otter, which has four incisors in the jaw, and the sloth bear. The number of molars and premolars is variable between species, but all teeth are deeply rooted and are diphyodont. Incisors are retained by carnivorans and the incisor is commonly large. Carnivorans have either four or five digits on each foot, with the first digit on the forepaws, also known as the dew claw, being vestigial in most species and absent in some. Most species are plain in coloration, lacking the flashy spotted or rosetted coats like many species of felids and viverrids have. This is because Canoidea tend to range in the temperate and subarctic biomes, most are terrestrial, although a few species, like procyonids, are arboreal. All families except the Canidae and a few species of Mustelidae are plantigrade, diet is varied and most tend to be omnivorous to some degree, and thus the carnassial teeth are less specialized. Canoidea have more premolars and molars in an elongated skull and this is because these species tend to range in tropical habitats, although a few species do inhabit temperate and subarctic habitats. Many are arboreal or semiarboreal, and the majority are digitigrade, diet tends to be more strictly carnivorous, especially in the family Felidae
6.
Viverridae
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Viverridae is a family of small to medium-sized mammals, the viverrids, comprising 15 genera, which are subdivided into 38 species. This family was named and first described by John Edward Gray in 1821, members of this family are commonly called civets or genets. Viverrids are found in South and Southeast Asia, across the Wallace Line, all over Africa and their occurrence in Sulawesi and in some of the adjoining islands shows them to be ancient inhabitants of the Old World tropics. Viverrids have four or five toes on each foot and half-retractile claws and they have six cutting teeth in each jaw and true grinders with two tubercular grinders behind in the upper jaw, and one in the lower jaw. The tongue is rough with sharp prickles, a pouch or gland occurs beneath the anus, but there is no coecum. Viverrids are the most primitive of all the families of feliform Carnivora, the typical dental formula is,3.1.4.23.1.4.2, but the number may be reduced, although never to the same extent as in the Felidae. Their flesh-shearing carnassial teeth are relatively undeveloped, most viverrid species have a baculum. They are generally solitary and have excellent hearing and vision and they are omnivorous, or, in the case of the palm civet, almost entirely herbivorous. Favored habitats include woodland, savanna, mountains, and above all, in 1821, Gray defined this family as consisting of the genera Viverra, Genetta, Herpestes, and Suricata. He subordinated the subfamilies Hemigalinae, Paradoxurinae, Prionodontinae, and Viverrinae to the Viverridae, in 1833, Edward Turner Bennett described the Malagasy fossa and subordinated the Cryptoprocta to the Viverridae. A molecular and morphological analysis based on DNA/DNA hybridization experiments suggests that Cryptoprocta does not belong within Viverridae, the African palm civet resembles the civets of the Viverridae, but is genetically distinct and belongs in its own monotypic family, the Nandiniidae. There is little dispute that the Poiana species are viverrids, BBC, New mammal seen in Borneo University of Michigans Animal Diversity Web page ITIS page The Straight Dope on Civet Cats
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Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Civet". Encyclopædia Britannica. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 402.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "