1.
Paenungulata
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Paenungulata is a clade that groups three extant mammal orders, Proboscidea, Sirenia, and Hyracoidea. At least two orders are known only as fossils, namely Embrithopoda and Desmostylia. Each of these orders was as unique in its members ways as the surviving orders. Embrithopods were rhinoceros-like herbivorous mammals with plantigrade feet, and desmostylians were hippopotamus-like amphibious animals and their walking posture and diet have been the subject of speculation, but tooth wear indicates that desmostylians browsed on terrestrial plants and had a posture similar to other large hoofed mammals. Of the five orders, hyraxes are the most basal, followed by embrithopods, the other members of this cohort are the orders Afrosoricida, Macroscelidea and Tubulidentata. In 1945, George Gaylord Simpson, using traditional taxonomic techniques, but there were many loose threads in unravelling their genealogy. For example, hyraxes in his Paenungulata had some characteristics suggesting they might be connected to the odd-toed ungulates, if true, this would mean that paenungulates are not a clade. Later, genetic techniques were developed for inspecting amino acid differences among haemoglobin sequences, the most parsimonious cladograms depicted Simpsons Paenungulata as an authentic clade and as one of the first groups to diversify from the basal placental mammals. The amino acid sequences do not support a connection with perissodactyls, altungulata Meridiungulata Kleinschmidt, Traute, Czelusniak, John, Goodman, Morris, Braunitzer, Gerhard. Paenungulata, A Comparison of the Hemoglobin Sequences from Elephant, Hyrax, mcKenna, M. C. and S. K. Bell. Classification of Mammals Above the Species Level, ISBN 0-231-11013-8 Seiffert, Erik, Guillon, JM. A new estimate of afrotherian phylogeny based on analysis of genomic, morphological. The principles of classification and a classification of mammals, in Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 85, in Kenneth D. Rose, J. David Archibald. The Rise of Placental Mammals, Origins and Relationships of the Major Extant Clades
2.
Paleocene
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The Paleocene or Palaeocene, the old recent, is a geologic epoch that lasted from about 66 to 56 million years ago. It is the first epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era, as with many geologic periods, the strata that define the epochs beginning and end are well identified, but the exact ages remain uncertain. The Paleocene Epoch brackets two major events in Earths history and it started with the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous, known as the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary. This was a marked by the demise of non-avian dinosaurs, giant marine reptiles and much other fauna. The die-off of the dinosaurs left unfilled ecological niches worldwide, the Paleocene ended with the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, a geologically brief interval characterized by extreme changes in climate and carbon cycling. The name Paleocene comes from Ancient Greek and refers to the old new fauna that arose during the epoch. The K–Pg boundary that marks the separation between Cretaceous and Paleocene is visible in the record of much of the Earth by a discontinuity in the fossil fauna. There is also evidence of abrupt changes in flora and fauna. There is some evidence that a substantial but very short-lived climatic change may have happened in the early decades of the Paleocene. The end of the Paleocene was also marked by a time of major change, the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum upset oceanic and atmospheric circulation and led to the extinction of numerous deep-sea benthic foraminifera and a major turnover in mammals on land. The Paleocene is divided into three stages, the Danian, the Selandian and the Thanetian, as shown in the table above, additionally, the Paleocene is divided into six Mammal Paleogene zones. The early Paleocene was cooler and dryer than the preceding Cretaceous, in many ways, the Paleocene continued processes that had begun during the late Cretaceous Period. During the Paleocene, the continued to drift toward their present positions. The Laramide orogeny of the late Cretaceous continued to uplift the Rocky Mountains in the American west, africa was heading north towards Europe, slowly closing the Tethys Ocean, and India began its migration to Asia that would lead to a tectonic collision and the formation of the Himalayas. The inland seas in North America and Europe had receded by the beginning of the Paleocene, making way for new land-based flora, warm seas circulated throughout the world, including the poles. The earliest Paleocene featured a low diversity and abundance of marine life, tropical conditions gave rise to abundant marine life, including coral reefs. With the demise of marine reptiles at the end of the Cretaceous, at the end of the Cretaceous, the ammonites and many species of foraminifera became extinct. Marine fauna also came to resemble modern fauna, with only the marine mammals, terrestrial Paleocene strata immediately overlying the K–Pg boundary is in places marked by a fern spike, a bed especially rich in fern fossils
3.
Precambrian
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The Precambrian is the earliest period of Earths history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is a supereon that is subdivided into three eons of the time scale. It spans from the formation of Earth about 4.6 billion years ago to the beginning of the Cambrian Period, about 541 million years ago, the Precambrian accounts for 89% of geologic time. Relatively little is known about the Precambrian, despite it making up roughly seven-eighths of the Earths history, the Precambrian fossil record is poorer than that of the succeeding Phanerozoic, and fossils from that time are of limited biostratigraphic use. This is because many Precambrian rocks have been metamorphosed, obscuring their origins, while others have been destroyed by erosion. A stable crust was apparently in place by 4,412 Ma, the term Precambrian is recognized by the International Commission on Stratigraphy as a general term including the Archean and Proterozoic eons. It is still used by geologists and paleontologists for general discussions not requiring the more specific eon names and it was briefly called the Cryptozoic eon. A specific date for the origin of life has not been determined, carbon found in 3.8 billion year old rocks from islands off western Greenland may be of organic origin. Well-preserved microscopic fossils of bacteria older than 3.46 billion years have found in Western Australia. Probable fossils 100 million years older have been found in the same area, there is a fairly solid record of bacterial life throughout the remainder of the Precambrian. The oldest fossil evidence from that era of such complex life comes from the Lantian formation of the Ediacarian period, a very diverse collection of soft-bodied forms is found in a variety of locations worldwide and date to between 635 and 542 Ma. These are referred to as Ediacaran or Vendian biota, hard-shelled creatures appeared toward the end of that time span, marking the beginning of the Phanerozoic era. By the middle of the following Cambrian period, a diverse fauna is recorded in the Burgess Shale. The explosion in diversity of lifeforms during the early Cambrian is called the Cambrian explosion of life, while land seems to have been devoid of plants and animals, cyanobacteria and other microbes formed prokaryotic mats that covered terrestrial areas. Evidence of the details of plate motions and other activity in the Precambrian has been poorly preserved. It is generally believed that small proto-continents existed prior to 4280 Ma, the supercontinent, known as Rodinia, broke up around 750 Ma. A number of glacial periods have been identified going as far back as the Huronian epoch, one of the best studied is the Sturtian-Varangian glaciation, around 850–635 Ma, which may have brought glacial conditions all the way to the equator, resulting in a Snowball Earth. The atmosphere of the early Earth is not well understood, most geologists believe it was composed primarily of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and other relatively inert gases, and was lacking in free oxygen
4.
Cambrian
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The Cambrian Period was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 55.6 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 541 million years ago to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 485.4 mya and its subdivisions, and its base, are somewhat in flux. The period was established by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latinised form of Cymru, the Welsh name for Wales, as a result, our understanding of the Cambrian biology surpasses that of some later periods. The rapid diversification of lifeforms in the Cambrian, known as the Cambrian explosion, most of the continents were probably dry and rocky due to a lack of vegetation. Shallow seas flanked the margins of several continents created during the breakup of the supercontinent Pannotia, the seas were relatively warm, and polar ice was absent for much of the period. The United States Federal Geographic Data Committee uses a barred capital C ⟨Є⟩ character similar to the capital letter Ukrainian Ye ⟨Є⟩ to represent the Cambrian Period, the proper Unicode character is U+A792 Ꞓ LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH BAR. Despite the long recognition of its distinction from younger Ordovician Period rocks and older Supereon Precambrian rocks, the base of the Cambrian lies atop a complex assemblage of trace fossils known as the Treptichnus pedum assemblage. Pedum in Namibia, Spain and Newfoundland, and possibly, in the western USA, the stratigraphic range of T. pedum overlaps the range of the Ediacaran fossils in Namibia, and probably in Spain. The Cambrian Period followed the Ediacaran Period and was followed by the Ordovician Period, the Cambrian is divided into four epochs and ten ages. Currently only two series and five stages are named and have a GSSP, because the international stratigraphic subdivision is not yet complete, many local subdivisions are still widely used. In some of these subdivisions the Cambrian is divided into three epochs with locally differing names – the Early Cambrian, Middle Cambrian and Furongian, rocks of these epochs are referred to as belonging to the Lower, Middle, or Upper Cambrian. Trilobite zones allow biostratigraphic correlation in the Cambrian, each of the local epochs is divided into several stages. The International Commission on Stratigraphy list the Cambrian period as beginning at 541 million years ago, the lower boundary of the Cambrian was originally held to represent the first appearance of complex life, represented by trilobites. The recognition of small shelly fossils before the first trilobites, and Ediacara biota substantially earlier and this formal designation allowed radiometric dates to be obtained from samples across the globe that corresponded to the base of the Cambrian. Early dates of 570 million years ago quickly gained favour, though the used to obtain this number are now considered to be unsuitable. A more precise date using modern radiometric dating yield a date of 541 ±0.3 million years ago, most continental land was clustered in the Southern Hemisphere at this time, but was drifting north. Large, high-velocity rotational movement of Gondwana appears to have occurred in the Early Cambrian, the sea levels fluctuated somewhat, suggesting there were ice ages, associated with pulses of expansion and contraction of a south polar ice cap. In Baltoscandia a Lower Cambrian transgression transformed large swathes of the Sub-Cambrian peneplain into a epicontinental sea, the Earth was generally cold during the early Cambrian, probably due to the ancient continent of Gondwana covering the South Pole and cutting off polar ocean currents
5.
Ordovician
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The Ordovician is a geologic period and system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era. The Ordovician spans 41.2 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period 485.4 million years ago to the start of the Silurian Period 443.8 Mya. Lapworth recognized that the fauna in the disputed strata were different from those of either the Cambrian or the Silurian periods. It received international sanction in 1960, when it was adopted as a period of the Paleozoic Era by the International Geological Congress. Life continued to flourish during the Ordovician as it did in the earlier Cambrian period, invertebrates, namely molluscs and arthropods, dominated the oceans. The Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event considerably increased the diversity of life, fish, the worlds first true vertebrates, continued to evolve, and those with jaws may have first appeared late in the period. Life had yet to diversify on land, about 100 times as many meteorites struck the Earth during the Ordovician compared with today. The Ordovician Period began with a major extinction called the Cambrian–Ordovician extinction event and it lasted for about 42 million years and ended with the Ordovician–Silurian extinction event, about 443.8 Mya which wiped out 60% of marine genera. The dates given are recent radiometric dates and vary slightly from those found in other sources and this second period of the Paleozoic era created abundant fossils that became major petroleum and gas reservoirs. The boundary chosen for the beginning of both the Ordovician Period and the Tremadocian stage is highly significant and it correlates well with the occurrence of widespread graptolite, conodont, and trilobite species. The base of the Tremadocian allows scientists to relate these species not only to each other and this makes it easier to place many more species in time relative to the beginning of the Ordovician Period. A number of terms have been used to subdivide the Ordovician Period. In 2008, the ICS erected an international system of subdivisions. There exist Baltoscandic, British, Siberian, North American, Australian, the Ordovician Period in Britain was traditionally broken into Early, Middle and Late epochs. The corresponding rocks of the Ordovician System are referred to as coming from the Lower, Middle, the Floian corresponds to the lower Arenig, the Arenig continues until the early Darriwilian, subsuming the Dapingian. The Llanvirn occupies the rest of the Darriwilian, and terminates with it at the base of the Late Ordovician. The Sandbian represents the first half of the Caradoc, the Caradoc ends in the mid-Katian, during the Ordovician, the southern continents were collected into Gondwana. Gondwana started the period in equatorial latitudes and, as the period progressed, drifted toward the South Pole, the small continent Avalonia separated from Gondwana and began to move north towards Baltica and Laurentia, opening the Rheic Ocean between Gondwana and Avalonia
6.
Silurian
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The Silurian is a geologic period and system spanning 24.6 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at 443.8 million years ago, to the beginning of the Devonian Period,419.2 Mya. As with other periods, the rock beds that define the periods start and end are well identified. The base of the Silurian is set at a major Ordovician-Silurian extinction event when 60% of marine species were wiped out, a significant evolutionary milestone during the Silurian was the diversification of jawed and bony fish. However, terrestrial life would not greatly diversify and affect the landscape until the Devonian, the Silurian system was first identified by British geologist Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, who was examining fossil-bearing sedimentary rock strata in south Wales in the early 1830s. He named the sequences for a Celtic tribe of Wales, the Silures, inspired by his friend Adam Sedgwick and this naming does not indicate any correlation between the occurrence of the Silurian rocks and the land inhabited by the Silures. As it was first identified, the Silurian series when traced farther afield quickly came to overlap Sedgwicks Cambrian sequence, however, charles Lapworth resolved the conflict by defining a new Ordovician system including the contested beds. An early alternative name for the Silurian was Gotlandian after the strata of the Baltic island of Gotland, the French geologist Joachim Barrande, building on Murchisons work, used the term Silurian in a more comprehensive sense than was justified by subsequent knowledge. He divided the Silurian rocks of Bohemia into eight stages and his interpretation was questioned in 1854 by Edward Forbes, and the later stages of Barrande, F, G and H, have since been shown to be Devonian. Despite these modifications in the groupings of the strata, it is recognized that Barrande established Bohemia as a classic ground for the study of the earliest fossils. The epoch is named for the town of Llandovery in Carmarthenshire, the Wenlock, which lasted from 433.4 ±1.5 to 427.4 ±2.8 mya, is subdivided into the Sheinwoodian and Homerian ages. It is named after Wenlock Edge in Shropshire, England, during the Wenlock, the oldest known tracheophytes of the genus Cooksonia, appear. The first terrestrial animals also appear in the Wenlock, represented by air-breathing millipedes from Scotland. The Ludlow, lasting from 427.4 ±1.5 to 423 ±2.8 mya, comprises the Gorstian stage, lasting until 425.6 million years ago, and it is named for the town of Ludlow in Shropshire, England. The Pridoli, lasting from 423 ±1.5 to 419.2 ±2.8 mya, is the final and it is named after one locality at the Homolka a Přídolí nature reserve near the Prague suburb Slivenec in the Czech Republic. Přídolí is the old name of a field area. The high sea levels of the Silurian and the flat land resulted in a number of island chains. The southern continents remained united during this period, the melting of icecaps and glaciers contributed to a rise in sea level, recognizable from the fact that Silurian sediments overlie eroded Ordovician sediments, forming an unconformity. The continents of Avalonia, Baltica, and Laurentia drifted together near the equator and this event is the Caledonian orogeny, a spate of mountain building that stretched from New York State through conjoined Europe and Greenland to Norway
7.
Devonian
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The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic, spanning 60 million years from the end of the Silurian,419.2 million years ago, to the beginning of the Carboniferous,358.9 Mya. It is named after Devon, England, where rocks from this period were first studied, the first significant adaptive radiation of life on dry land occurred during the Devonian. Free-sporing vascular plants began to spread across dry land, forming extensive forests which covered the continents, by the middle of the Devonian, several groups of plants had evolved leaves and true roots, and by the end of the period the first seed-bearing plants appeared. Various terrestrial arthropods also became well-established, Fish reached substantial diversity during this time, leading the Devonian to often be dubbed the Age of Fish. The first ray-finned and lobe-finned bony fish appeared, while the placodermi began dominating almost every aquatic environment. The ancestors of all four-limbed vertebrates began adapting to walking on land, as their strong pectoral, in the oceans, primitive sharks became more numerous than in the Silurian and Late Ordovician. The first ammonites, species of molluscs, appeared, trilobites, the mollusk-like brachiopods and the great coral reefs, were still common. The Late Devonian extinction which started about 375 million years ago severely affected marine life, killing off all placodermi, and all trilobites, save for a few species of the order Proetida. The palaeogeography was dominated by the supercontinent of Gondwana to the south, the continent of Siberia to the north, while the rock beds that define the start and end of the Devonian period are well identified, the exact dates are uncertain. According to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the Devonian extends from the end of the Silurian 419.2 Mya, another common term is Age of the Fishes, referring to the evolution of several major groups of fish that took place during the period. Older literature on the Anglo-Welsh basin divides it into the Downtonian, Dittonian, Breconian and Farlovian stages, in the Late Devonian, by contrast, arid conditions were less prevalent across the world and temperate climates were more common. The Devonian Period is formally broken into Early, Middle and Late subdivisions, the rocks corresponding to those epochs are referred to as belonging to the Lower, Middle and Upper parts of the Devonian System. Early Devonian The Early Devonian lasted from 419.2 ±2.8 to 393.3 ±2.5 and began with the Lochkovian stage, which lasted until the Pragian. It spanned from 410.8 ±2.8 to 407.6 ±2.5, and was followed by the Emsian, which lasted until the Middle Devonian began,393. 3±2.7 million years ago. Middle Devonian The Middle Devonian comprised two subdivisions, first the Eifelian, which gave way to the Givetian 387. 7±2.7 million years ago. Late Devonian Finally, the Late Devonian started with the Frasnian,382.7 ±2.8 to 372.2 ±2.5, during which the first forests took shape on land. The first tetrapods appeared in the record in the ensuing Famennian subdivision. This lasted until the end of the Devonian,358. 9±2.5 million years ago, the Devonian was a relatively warm period, and probably lacked any glaciers
8.
Carboniferous
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The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period 358.9 million years ago, to the beginning of the Permian Period,298.9 Mya. The name Carboniferous means coal-bearing and derives from the Latin words carbō and ferō, and was coined by geologists William Conybeare and William Phillips in 1822. Based on a study of the British rock succession, it was the first of the system names to be employed. The Carboniferous is often treated in North America as two periods, the earlier Mississippian and the later Pennsylvanian. Terrestrial life was established by the Carboniferous period. Amphibians were the dominant land vertebrates, of one branch would eventually evolve into amniotes. Arthropods were also common, and many were much larger than those of today. Vast swaths of forest covered the land, which would eventually be laid down, the atmospheric content of oxygen also reached their highest levels in geological history during the period, 35% compared with 21% today, allowing terrestrial invertebrates to evolve to great size. A major marine and terrestrial extinction event, the Carboniferous rainforest collapse, occurred in the middle of the period, the later half of the period experienced glaciations, low sea level, and mountain building as the continents collided to form Pangaea. In the United States the Carboniferous is usually broken into Mississippian and Pennsylvanian subperiods, the Silesian is roughly contemporaneous with the late Mississippian Serpukhovian plus the Pennsylvanian. In Britain the Dinantian is traditionally known as the Carboniferous Limestone, the Namurian as the Millstone Grit, and the Westphalian as the Coal Measures and Pennant Sandstone. There was also a drop in south polar temperatures, southern Gondwanaland was glaciated throughout the period and these conditions apparently had little effect in the deep tropics, where lush swamps, later to become coal, flourished to within 30 degrees of the northernmost glaciers. Mid-Carboniferous, a drop in sea level precipitated a major extinction, one that hit crinoids. This sea level drop and the unconformity in North America separate the Mississippian subperiod from the Pennsylvanian subperiod. This happened about 323 million years ago, at the onset of the Permo-Carboniferous Glaciation, the Carboniferous was a time of active mountain-building, as the supercontinent Pangaea came together. The southern continents remained tied together in the supercontinent Gondwana, which collided with North America–Europe along the present line of eastern North America, in the same time frame, much of present eastern Eurasian plate welded itself to Europe along the line of the Ural mountains. Most of the Mesozoic supercontinent of Pangea was now assembled, although North China, the Late Carboniferous Pangaea was shaped like an O. There were two major oceans in the Carboniferous—Panthalassa and Paleo-Tethys, which was inside the O in the Carboniferous Pangaea, other minor oceans were shrinking and eventually closed - Rheic Ocean, the small, shallow Ural Ocean and Proto-Tethys Ocean
9.
Permian
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The Permian is a geologic period and system which spans 46.7 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period 298.9 million years ago, to the beginning of the Triassic Period 252.2 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleozoic Era, the following Triassic Period belongs to the Mesozoic Era, the concept of the Permian was introduced in 1841 by geologist Sir Roderick Murchison, who named it after the city of Perm. The Permian witnessed the diversification of the early amniotes into the groups of the mammals, turtles, lepidosaurs. The world at the time was dominated by two known as Pangaea and Siberia, surrounded by a global ocean called Panthalassa. The Carboniferous rainforest collapse left behind vast regions of desert within the continental interior, amniotes, who could better cope with these drier conditions, rose to dominance in place of their amphibian ancestors. The Permian ended with the Permian–Triassic extinction event, the largest mass extinction in Earths history, in which nearly 90% of marine species and it would take well into the Triassic for life to recover from this catastrophe. Recovery from the Permian-Triassic extinction event was protracted, on land, the term Permian was introduced into geology in 1841 by Sir R. I. Murchison, president of the Geological Society of London, who identified typical strata in extensive Russian explorations undertaken with Edouard de Verneuil, the region now lies in the Perm Krai of Russia. This could have in part caused the extinctions of marine species at the end of the period by severely reducing shallow coastal areas preferred by many marine organisms. During the Permian, all the Earths major landmasses were collected into a supercontinent known as Pangaea. The Cimmeria continent rifted away from Gondwana and drifted north to Laurasia, a new ocean was growing on its southern end, the Tethys Ocean, an ocean that would dominate much of the Mesozoic Era. Large continental landmass interiors experience climates with extreme variations of heat and cold, deserts seem to have been widespread on Pangaea. Such dry conditions favored gymnosperms, plants with seeds enclosed in a cover, over plants such as ferns that disperse spores in a wetter environment. The first modern trees appeared in the Permian, the climate in the Permian was quite varied. At the start of the Permian, the Earth was still in an Ice Age, glaciers receded around the mid-Permian period as the climate gradually warmed, drying the continents interiors. In the late Permian period, the drying continued although the temperature cycled between warm and cool cycles, Permian marine deposits are rich in fossil mollusks, echinoderms, and brachiopods. By the close of the Permian, trilobites and a host of other groups became extinct. Terrestrial life in the Permian included diverse plants, fungi, arthropods, the period saw a massive desert covering the interior of Pangaea
10.
Triassic
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The Triassic is a geologic period and system which spans 50.9 million years from the end of the Permian Period 252.17 million years ago, to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.3 Mya. The Triassic is the first period of the Mesozoic Era, both the start and end of the period are marked by major extinction events. Therapsids and archosaurs were the terrestrial vertebrates during this time. A specialized subgroup of archosaurs, called dinosaurs, first appeared in the Late Triassic, the vast supercontinent of Pangaea existed until the mid-Triassic, after which it began to gradually rift into two separate landmasses, Laurasia to the north and Gondwana to the south. The global climate during the Triassic was mostly hot and dry, however, the climate shifted and became more humid as Pangaea began to drift apart. The end of the period was marked by yet another mass extinction, the Triassic-Jurassic extinction event. The Triassic is usually separated into Early, Middle, and Late Triassic Epochs, from the east, along the equator, the Tethys sea penetrated Pangaea, causing the Paleo-Tethys Ocean to be closed. Later in the mid-Triassic a similar sea penetrated along the equator from the west, the remaining shores were surrounded by the world-ocean known as Panthalassa. All the deep-ocean sediments laid down during the Triassic have disappeared through subduction of oceanic plates, thus, the supercontinent Pangaea was rifting during the Triassic—especially late in that period—but had not yet separated. In North America, for example, marine deposits are limited to a few exposures in the west, thus Triassic stratigraphy is mostly based on organisms that lived in lagoons and hypersaline environments, such as Estheria crustaceans. At the beginning of the Mesozoic Era, Africa was joined with Earths other continents in Pangaea, Africa shared the supercontinents relatively uniform fauna which was dominated by theropods, prosauropods and primitive ornithischians by the close of the Triassic period. Late Triassic fossils are found throughout Africa, but are common in the south than north. The time boundary separating the Permian and Triassic marks the advent of an event with global impact. At Paleorrota geopark, located in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, in these formations, one of the earliest dinosaurs, Staurikosaurus, as well as the mammal ancestors Brasilitherium and Brasilodon have been discovered. The Triassic continental interior climate was hot and dry, so that typical deposits are red bed sandstones and evaporites. Pangaeas large size limited the effect of the global ocean, its continental climate was highly seasonal, with very hot summers. The strong contrast between the Pangea supercontinent and the global ocean triggered intense cross-equatorial monsoons, the best studied of such episodes of humid climate, and probably the most intense and widespread, was the Carnian Pluvial Event. On land, the vascular plants included the lycophytes, the dominant cycadophytes, ginkgophyta, ferns, horsetails
11.
Jurassic
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The Jurassic is a geologic period and system that spans 56.3 million years from the end of the Triassic Period 201.3 million years ago to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period 145 Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of the Mesozoic Era, also known as the Age of Reptiles, the start of the period is marked by the major Triassic–Jurassic extinction event. The Jurassic is named after the Jura Mountains within the European Alps, by the beginning of the Jurassic, the supercontinent Pangaea had begun rifting into two landmasses, Laurasia to the north and Gondwana to the south. This created more coastlines and shifted the continental climate from dry to humid, on land, the fauna transitioned from the Triassic fauna, dominated by both dinosauromorph and crocodylomorph archosaurs, to one dominated by dinosaurs alone. The first birds also appeared during the Jurassic, having evolved from a branch of theropod dinosaurs, other major events include the appearance of the earliest lizards, and the evolution of therian mammals, including primitive placentals. Crocodilians made the transition from a terrestrial to a mode of life. The oceans were inhabited by marine reptiles such as ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, the chronostratigraphic term Jurassic is directly linked to the Jura Mountains. The name Jura is derived from the Celtic root jor, which was Latinised into juria, the Jurassic period is divided into the Early Jurassic, Middle, and Late Jurassic epochs. The Jurassic System, in stratigraphy, is divided into the Lower Jurassic, Middle, the separation of the term Jurassic into three sections goes back to Leopold von Buch. The Jurassic North Atlantic Ocean was relatively narrow, while the South Atlantic did not open until the following Cretaceous period, the Tethys Sea closed, and the Neotethys basin appeared. Climates were warm, with no evidence of glaciation, as in the Triassic, there was apparently no land over either pole, and no extensive ice caps existed. In contrast, the North American Jurassic record is the poorest of the Mesozoic, the Jurassic was a time of calcite sea geochemistry in which low-magnesium calcite was the primary inorganic marine precipitate of calcium carbonate. Carbonate hardgrounds were thus very common, along with calcitic ooids, calcitic cements, the first of several massive batholiths were emplaced in the northern American cordillera beginning in the mid-Jurassic, marking the Nevadan orogeny. Important Jurassic exposures are found in Russia, India, South America, Japan, Australasia. As the Jurassic proceeded, larger and more groups of dinosaurs like sauropods and ornithopods proliferated in Africa. Middle Jurassic strata are well represented nor well studied in Africa. Late Jurassic strata are also poorly represented apart from the spectacular Tendaguru fauna in Tanzania, the Late Jurassic life of Tendaguru is very similar to that found in western North Americas Morrison Formation. During the Jurassic period, the primary living in the sea were fish
12.
Cretaceous
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The Cretaceous is a geologic period and system that spans 79 million years from the end of the Jurassic Period 145 million years ago to the beginning of the Paleogene Period 66 Mya. It is the last period of the Mesozoic Era, the Cretaceous Period is usually abbreviated K, for its German translation Kreide. The Cretaceous was a period with a warm climate, resulting in high eustatic sea levels that created numerous shallow inland seas. These oceans and seas were populated with now-extinct marine reptiles, ammonites and rudists, during this time, new groups of mammals and birds, as well as flowering plants, appeared. The Cretaceous ended with a mass extinction, the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, in which many groups, including non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs. The end of the Cretaceous is defined by the abrupt Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, the name Cretaceous was derived from Latin creta, meaning chalk. The Cretaceous is divided into Early and Late Cretaceous epochs, or Lower and Upper Cretaceous series, in older literature the Cretaceous is sometimes divided into three series, Neocomian, Gallic and Senonian. A subdivision in eleven stages, all originating from European stratigraphy, is now used worldwide, in many parts of the world, alternative local subdivisions are still in use. As with other geologic periods, the rock beds of the Cretaceous are well identified. No great extinction or burst of diversity separates the Cretaceous from the Jurassic and this layer has been dated at 66.043 Ma. A140 Ma age for the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary instead of the usually accepted 145 Ma was proposed in 2014 based on a study of Vaca Muerta Formation in Neuquén Basin. Víctor Ramos, one of the authors of the study proposing the 140 Ma boundary age sees the study as a first step toward formally changing the age in the International Union of Geological Sciences, due to the high sea level there was extensive space for such sedimentation. Because of the young age and great thickness of the system. Chalk is a type characteristic for the Cretaceous. It consists of coccoliths, microscopically small calcite skeletons of coccolithophores, the group is found in England, northern France, the low countries, northern Germany, Denmark and in the subsurface of the southern part of the North Sea. Chalk is not easily consolidated and the Chalk Group still consists of sediments in many places. The group also has other limestones and arenites, among the fossils it contains are sea urchins, belemnites, ammonites and sea reptiles such as Mosasaurus. In southern Europe, the Cretaceous is usually a marine system consisting of competent limestone beds or incompetent marls
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Paleogene
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The Paleogene is a geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period 66 million years ago to the beginning of the Neogene Period 23.03 Mya. It is the beginning of the Cenozoic Era of the present Phanerozoic Eon and this period consists of the Paleocene, Eocene and Oligocene epochs. The terms Paleogene System and lower Tertiary System are applied to the rocks deposited during the Paleogene Period. By dividing the Tertiary Period into two periods instead of directly into five epochs, the periods are more comparable to the duration of periods of the preceding Mesozoic and Paleozoic Eras. The trend was caused by the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. During the Paleogene, the continued to drift closer to their current positions. India was in the process of colliding with Asia, subsequently forming the Himalayas, the Atlantic Ocean continued to widen by a few centimeters each year. Africa was moving north to meet with Europe and form the Mediterranean, inland seas retreated from North America early in the period. Australia had also separated from Antarctica and was drifting towards Southeast Asia, mammals began a rapid diversification during this period. Some of these mammals would evolve into forms that would dominate the land, while others would become capable of living in marine, specialized terrestrial. Those that took to the oceans became modern cetaceans, while those that took to the trees became primates, the group to which humans belong. Birds, which were well established by the end of the Cretaceous. In comparison to birds and mammals, most other branches of life remained unchanged during this period. As the Earth cooled, tropical plants became less numerous and were now restricted to equatorial regions, deciduous plants, which could survive through the seasonal climates the world was now experiencing, became more common. The Paleogene is notable in the context of offshore oil drilling, and especially in Gulf of Mexico oil exploration and these rock formations represent the current cutting edge of deep-water oil discovery. Lower Tertiary explorations to date include, Kaskida Oil Field Tiber Oil Field Jack 2 Paleogene Microfossils, 180+ images of Foraminifera
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Neogene
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The Neogene is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period 23.03 million years ago to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period 2.58 Mya. The Neogene is sub-divided into two epochs, the earlier Miocene and the later Pliocene, some geologists assert that the Neogene cannot be clearly delineated from the modern geological period, the Quaternary. During this period, mammals and birds continued to evolve into modern forms. Early hominids, the ancestors of humans, appeared in Africa near the end of the period, some continental movement took place, the most significant event being the connection of North and South America at the Isthmus of Panama, late in the Pliocene. This cut off the ocean currents from the Pacific to the Atlantic ocean. The global climate cooled considerably over the course of the Neogene, the terms Neogene System and upper Tertiary System describe the rocks deposited during the Neogene Period. The continents in the Neogene were very close to their current positions, the Isthmus of Panama formed, connecting North and South America. The Indian subcontinent continued to collide with Asia, forming the Himalayas, sea levels fell, creating land bridges between Africa and Eurasia and between Eurasia and North America. The global climate became seasonal and continued an overall drying and cooling trend which began at the start of the Paleogene. The ice caps on both poles began to grow and thicken, and by the end of the period the first of a series of glaciations of the current Ice Age began, marine and continental flora and fauna have a modern appearance. The reptile group Choristodera became extinct in the part of the period. Mammals and birds continued to be the dominant terrestrial vertebrates, the first hominids, the ancestors of humans, appeared in Africa and spread into Eurasia. In response to the cooler, seasonal climate, tropical plant species gave way to deciduous ones, grasses therefore greatly diversified, and herbivorous mammals evolved alongside it, creating the many grazing animals of today such as horses, antelope, and bison. The Neogene traditionally ended at the end of the Pliocene Epoch, just before the definition of the beginning of the Quaternary Period. However, there was a movement amongst geologists to also include ongoing geological time in the Neogene, by dividing the Cenozoic Era into three periods instead of seven epochs, the periods are more closely comparable to the duration of periods in the Mesozoic and Paleozoic eras. The International Commission on Stratigraphy once proposed that the Quaternary be considered a sub-era of the Neogene, with a date of 2.58 Ma. In the 2004 proposal of the ICS, the Neogene would have consisted of the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, thus the Neogene Period ends bounding the succeeding Quaternary Period at 2.58 Mya. Digital Atlas of Neogene Life for the Southeastern United States — by San Jose State University via Web Archive
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Donkey
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The donkey or ass is a domesticated member of the horse family, Equidae. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African wild ass, the donkey has been used as a working animal for at least 5000 years. There are more than 40 million donkeys in the world, mostly in underdeveloped countries, working donkeys are often associated with those living at or below subsistence levels. Small numbers of donkeys are kept for breeding or as pets in developed countries, a male donkey or ass is called a jack, a female a jenny or jennet, a young donkey is a foal. Jack donkeys are used to mate with female horses to produce mules. Asses were first domesticated around 3000 BC, probably in Egypt or Mesopotamia and they continue to fill important roles in many places today. While domesticated species are increasing in numbers, the African wild ass is an endangered species, as beasts of burden and companions, asses and donkeys have worked together with humans for millennia. Traditionally, the name for the donkey is Equus asinus asinus based on the principle of priority used for scientific names of animals. This means that the scientific name for the donkey is Equus africanus asinus when it is considered a subspecies. At one time, the ass was the more common term for the donkey. The first recorded use of donkey was in either 1784 or 1785, while the word ass has cognates in most other Indo-European languages, donkey is an etymologically obscure word for which no credible cognate has been identified. From the 18th century, donkey gradually replaced ass, and jenny replaced she-ass, by the end of the 17th century, changes in pronunciation of both ass and arse had caused them to become homophones. Donkeys vary considerably in size, depending on breed and management, the height at the withers ranges from 7.3 to 15.3 hands, and the weight from 80 to 480 kg. Working donkeys in the poorest countries have an expectancy of 12 to 15 years, in more prosperous countries. Donkeys are adapted to desert lands. Unlike wild and feral horses, wild donkeys in dry areas are solitary, each adult donkey establishes a home range, breeding over a large area may be dominated by one jack. Donkeys have large ears, which may pick up more distant sounds, donkeys can defend themselves by biting, striking with the front hooves or kicking with the hind legs. A jenny is normally pregnant for about 12 months, though the period varies from 11 to 14 months
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Spanish ibex
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The Iberian ibex, Spanish ibex, Spanish wild goat, or Iberian wild goat is a species of ibex with four subspecies. Of these, two can still be found on the Iberian Peninsula, but the two are now extinct. The Portuguese subspecies became extinct in 1892 and the Pyrenean subspecies became extinct in 2000, an ongoing project to clone to the Pyrenean subspecies resulted in one clone being born alive in January 2009. This is the first taxon to become un-extinct, although the clone died a few minutes after birth due to defects in lungs. The Iberian ibex Capra pyrenaica populates the Iberian Peninsula and consisted originally of four subspecies, however, with recent extinctions occurring within the last century, only two of the subspecies still exist. These two subspecies of ibexes, C. p. hispanica and C. p. victoriae, C. pyrenaica are strong mountainous animals characterized by their large and flexible hooves and short legs. These physical adaptations allow them to be able to run and leap on bare, rocky, rough and this gives them an advantage over potential predators that possibly cannot reach them because of the terrain. The Iberian ibex also shows sexual dimorphism, with males being greater in size and weight. The horns of the ibexes are different among wild caprids as they curve out and up and then back, inward, the annual horn growth is influenced principally by age but can also be contributed by environmental factors and the growth made in the previous year. Even though the female ibexes are smaller, they have a faster ossification process, Iberian ibex establish two types of social groups, male-only groups and females with young juvenile groups. It is during rutting season that the males interact with the females in order to reproduce, allocation to testes mass was greatest in the rutting season, particularly at ages that are associated with a subordinate status and a coursing, rather than mate-guarding, reproductive strategy. Mixed groups are common during the rest of the winter. During the birth season, the yearling are separated from the groups at the time of the new births. The males are the first to separate and return to their groups while the female yearlings eventually return to their mothers. The Spanish ibex has a way of signaling others when a potential predator has been spotted. First the ibex will have a posture with its ears. The caller will then signal the other ibexes in the group with one or more alarm calls, once the group has heard the alarm calls, they will flee to another area that is usually an advantageous vantage point like a rocky slope where the predator cannot reach. Interestingly, the ibex usually flees in a coordinated fashion that is led by an experienced adult female in female-juvenile groups
17.
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
18.
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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Chordate
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Chordates are deuterostomes, as during the embryo development stage the anus forms before the mouth. They are also bilaterally symmetric coelomates, in the case of vertebrate chordates, the notochord is usually replaced by a vertebral column during development, and they may have body plans organized via segmentation. There are also additional extinct taxa, the Vertebrata are sometimes considered as a subgroup of the clade Craniata, consisting of chordates with a skull, the Craniata and Tunicata compose the clade Olfactores. Of the more than 65,000 living species of chordates, the worlds largest and fastest animals, the blue whale and peregrine falcon respectively, are chordates, as are humans. Fossil chordates are known from at least as early as the Cambrian explosion, Hemichordata, which includes the acorn worms, has been presented as a fourth chordate subphylum, but it now is usually treated as a separate phylum. The Hemichordata, along with the Echinodermata, form the Ambulacraria, the Chordata and Ambulacraria form the superphylum Deuterostomia, composed of the deuterostomes. Attempts to work out the relationships of the chordates have produced several hypotheses. All of the earliest chordate fossils have found in the Early Cambrian Chengjiang fauna. Because the fossil record of early chordates is poor, only molecular phylogenetics offers a prospect of dating their emergence. However, the use of molecular phylogenetics for dating evolutionary transitions is controversial and it has also proved difficult to produce a detailed classification within the living chordates. Attempts to produce family trees shows that many of the traditional classes are paraphyletic. While this has been known since the 19th century, an insistence on only monophyletic taxa has resulted in vertebrate classification being in a state of flux. Although the name Chordata is attributed to William Bateson, it was already in prevalent use by 1880, ernst Haeckel described a taxon comprising tunicates, cephalochordates, and vertebrates in 1866. Though he used the German vernacular form, it is allowed under the ICZN code because of its subsequent latinization, among the vertebrate sub-group of chordates the notochord develops into the spine, and in wholly aquatic species this helps the animal to swim by flexing its tail. In fish and other vertebrates, this develops into the spinal cord, the pharynx is the part of the throat immediately behind the mouth. In fish, the slits are modified to form gills, a muscular tail that extends backwards behind the anus. This is a groove in the wall of the pharynx. In filter-feeding species it produces mucus to gather food particles, which helps in transporting food to the esophagus and it also stores iodine, and may be a precursor of the vertebrate thyroid gland
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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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Scrotifera
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Scrotifera is the sister group to the Eulipotyphla and together they make up the Laurasiatheria. The name comes from the scrotum, a pouch in which the testes permanently reside in the adult male. All members of the group have a postpenile scrotum, often displayed, except for some aquatic forms. It appears to be a character for this group, yet other orders generally lack this as an ancestral feature. The clade Scrotifera is based on evidence from molecular phylogenetics, the monophylogeny of the group is well supported, but there is some debate about the internal order, with Pegasoferae being an alternative to that shown in the following cladogram
22.
Carl Linnaeus
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Carl Linnaeus, also known after his ennoblement as Carl von Linné, was a Swedish botanist, physician, and zoologist, who formalised the modern system of naming organisms called binomial nomenclature. He is known by the father of modern taxonomy. Many of his writings were in Latin, and his name is rendered in Latin as Carolus Linnæus, Linnaeus was born in the countryside of Småland, in southern Sweden. He received most of his education at Uppsala University. He lived abroad between 1735 and 1738, where he studied and also published a first edition of his Systema Naturae in the Netherlands and he then returned to Sweden, where he became professor of medicine and botany at Uppsala. In the 1740s, he was sent on journeys through Sweden to find and classify plants. In the 1750s and 1760s, he continued to collect and classify animals, plants, and minerals, at the time of his death, he was one of the most acclaimed scientists in Europe. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau sent him the message, Tell him I know no man on earth. The German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, With the exception of Shakespeare and Spinoza, Swedish author August Strindberg wrote, Linnaeus was in reality a poet who happened to become a naturalist. Among other compliments, Linnaeus has been called Princeps botanicorum, The Pliny of the North and he is also considered as one of the founders of modern ecology. In botany, the abbreviation used to indicate Linnaeus as the authority for species names is L. In older publications, sometimes the abbreviation Linn. is found, Linnæus was born in the village of Råshult in Småland, Sweden, on 23 May 1707. He was the first child of Nicolaus Ingemarsson and Christina Brodersonia and his siblings were Anna Maria Linnæa, Sofia Juliana Linnæa, Samuel Linnæus, and Emerentia Linnæa. One of a line of peasants and priests, Nils was an amateur botanist, a Lutheran minister. Christina was the daughter of the rector of Stenbrohult, Samuel Brodersonius, a year after Linnæus birth, his grandfather Samuel Brodersonius died, and his father Nils became the rector of Stenbrohult. The family moved into the rectory from the curates house, even in his early years, Linnæus seemed to have a liking for plants, flowers in particular. Whenever he was upset, he was given a flower, which calmed him. Nils spent much time in his garden and often showed flowers to Linnaeus, soon Linnæus was given his own patch of earth where he could grow plants
23.
Phenacodontidae
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Phenacodontidae is an extinct family of large herbivorous mammals traditionally placed in the wastebasket taxon Condylarthra, that may represent early perissodactyls. They lived between the Paleocene and Eocene epochs and their remains have been found in North America. These animals had a variety of sizes, and could be as small as domestic cats. The skull of phenacodontids is long and narrow, and equipped with a small braincase, some species had tapir-like adaptations suggestive of the presence of a short proboscis or a strong prehensile lip. Some forms, like Meniscotherium, had enlarged ridges and this adaptation is unusual for mammals as old as phenacodontids. The phenacodontids evolved in the middle Paleocene in North America, early forms were usually small - Tetraclaenodon, for example, was the size of a fox. Later forms were larger and invaded Europe, although they never became as plentiful as in North America. Towards the beginning of the Eocene these animals slowly disappeared from the fossil record, only a few forms survived into the middle Eocene - these include Phenacodus in Europe and North America, Almogaver in Europe and Ectocion in North America. An exception to the scarcity of Eocene phenacodontids is the dog-sized genus Meniscotherium, the phenacodontids were classically included in the large, now thought to be artificial, order of Condylarthra. This order has been considered to be a taxon for some time. According to more recent views, the Condylarths are better understood as an evolutionaire grade instead of a monophyletic clade, indeed, recent phylogenetic studies confirm that phenacodonts were most closely related to modern odd-toed ungulates. The specialized teeth found in at least some phenacodontids seem to indicate an herbivorous lifestyle. The shape of the legs indicated that some phenacodontids were swift runners, radinskya, a basal perissodactyl from the Paleocene of China Agusti, Jordi, Anton, Mauricio. Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids,65 Million Years of Mammalian Evolution in Europe, in Janis, C. M. Scott, K. M. & Jacobs, L. L. Evolution of Tertiary Mammals of North America. Volume 1, Terrestrial Carnivores, Ungulates, and Ungulatelike Mammals, prothero, D. R. Manning, E. M. & Fischer, M.1988. The Phylogeny and Classification of the Tetrapods, Volume 2, Mammals, a new genus of Macroscelidea from the Eocene of Algeria, a possible origin for elephant-shrews. Tabuce, R. Marivaux, L. Adaci, M. Bensalah, M. Hartenberger, mahboubi, M. Mebrouk, F. Tafforeau, P. Jaeger, J. -J. Early Tertiary mammals from North Africa reinforce the molecular Afrotheria clade, proceedings of the Royal Society B
24.
Anthracobunidae
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Anthracobunidae is an extinct family of stem perissodactyls that lived in the early to middle Eocene period. They were originally considered to be a family of primitive proboscideans possibly ancestral to the Moeritheriidae. The family has also thought to be ancestral to the Sirenia and they superficially resemble the Moeritheriidae in both size and cheek tooth morphology, but lack their characteristic tusks. They were relatively small, ranging in size from 1 to 2 m in length and they are known only from fragmentary remains from Eocene deposits of the northwestern part of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. Recently excavated fossils with well-preserved jaws and teeth demonstrate that animals were actually perissodactyls. The anthracobunids were probably amphibious and lived in marshy environments, analyses of stable isotopes and long bone geometry suggest most anthracobunids fed on terrestrial vegetation, but lived near water
25.
Desmostylia
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The Desmostylia are an extinct order of paenungulate aquatic mammals that existed from the late Oligocene to the late Miocene. Desmostylians are the only known order of marine mammals. Desmostylians were large, fully aquatic quadrupeds with massive limbs and short tails, the smallest is Ashoroa laticosta, a relatively large animal at a body length of 168 cm, while the largest species reached sizes comparable to Stellers sea cow. A desmostylian skull has an elongated and broadened rostrum, with the opening located slightly dorsally. The zygomatic arches are prominent, the paroccipital processes elongated, the mandible and maxilla typically have forward-pointing incisors and canine tusks, followed by a long postcanine diastema, partly because of the reduced number of premolars. The cusps of the premolars and molars are composed of densely packed cylinders of thick enamel, the primitive dental formula is 3.1.4.3, with a trilobate fourth deciduous premolar. The cheek teeth are brachydont and bunodont in primitive genera, but hypsodont in later genera such as Desmostylus, in the postcrania, the clavicle is absent and the sternum consists of a series of heavy, paired, plate-like sternebrae. In adults, the joints between the radius and ulna prevent any movements, the metacarpals are longer than metatarsals, and each foot has four digits. Their dental and skeletal forms suggest that desmostylians were aquatic herbivores dependent on littoral habitats, Desmostylus does not chew or eat like any other known animal. It clenches its teeth, roots up plants with the help of tusks and powerful neck, and then them in using strong throat muscles. Desmostylians are believed to aquatic because of a combination of characteristics and their legs seemed to be adapted for terrestrial locomotion, while a number of other parameters confirms their aquatic nature, Fossils have been found in marine strata. The nares are retracted and the orbits are raised like in other aquatic mammals, levels of stable isotopes in their tooth enamel suggest an aquatic diet and environment and fresh or brackish water. Their spongy bone structure is similar to that of cetaceans, more recent studies vindicate this assessment, as desmostylians had a thoraxic morphology more similar to sirenians and cetaceans than to that of semiaquatic mammals. A2017 study on Desmostylus and Paleoparadoxia shows that the preferred areas shallower than 30 m, while the latter occurred in deep. Desmostylian fossils are known from the northern Pacific Rim, from southern Japan through Russia, the Aleutian Islands, and they range from the Early Oligocene to the late Miocene. Desmostylians, being fully marine herbivores, are thought to have been outcompeted ecologically by dugongid sirenians, both desmostylians and North Pacific dugongids were apparently kelp specialists, as opposed to marine herbivorous mammals from other regions, with diets primarily composed of seagrass. Osborn 1905 also proposed that they belonged to the Sirenia, one of the most comprehensive collections of desmostylian teeth was amassed by paleontologist John C. Merriam, who concluded on the basis of the structure and repeated occurrence in marine beds that the animals had been aquatic
26.
Meridiungulata
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Meridiungulata is an extinct clade with the rank of cohort or superorder, containing the South American ungulates Pyrotheria, Astrapotheria, Notoungulata and Litopterna. It is not known if it is a group, it was erected to distinguish the ungulates of South America from other ungulates. Relationships between the orders inside Meridiungulata remain unresolved and it could well be a wastebasket taxon and it has, however, been suggested the Meridiungulata are part of a different macro-group of placental mammals called Atlantogenata. Much of the evolution of meridiungulates occurred in isolation from other ungulates, however, the argument that meridiungulates are related to artiodactyls and perissodactyls needs support from molecular sequencing
27.
Odd-toed ungulate
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Members of the order Perissodactyla, otherwise known as odd-toed ungulates, are mammals characterized by an odd number of toes and by hindgut fermentation with somewhat simple stomachs. Perissodactyla comes from the Ancient Greek περισσός + δάκτυλος, unlike the even-toed ungulates, they digest plant cellulose in their intestines rather than in one or more stomach chambers. The order includes three extant families, Equidae, Rhinocerotidae, and Tapiridae, with a total of about 17 species. In spite of their different appearances, they were recognized as related families in the 19th century by the zoologist Richard Owen. The largest odd-toed ungulates are rhinoceroses, and the extinct Paraceratherium, at the other extreme, an early member of the order, the prehistoric horse Hyracotherium, had a shoulder height of only 30 to 60 cm. Apart from dwarf varieties of the horse and donkey, perissodactyls reach a body length of 180–420 cm. While rhinos have only sparse hair and exhibit a thick epidermis, tapirs and horses have dense, most species are grey or brown, although zebras and young tapirs are striped. The main axes of both the front and rear feet pass through the toe, which is always the largest. The remaining toes have been reduced in size to varying degrees, tapirs, which are adapted to walking on soft ground, have four toes on their fore feet and three on their hind feet. Living rhinos have three toes on both the front and hind feet, modern equines possess only a single toe, however, their feet are equipped with hooves, which almost completely cover the toe. Rhinos and tapirs, by contrast, have hooves covering only the edge of the toes. The ulnae and fibulae are reduced in horses, a common feature that clearly distinguishes this group from other mammals is the saddle-shaped ankle between the astragalus and the scaphoid, which greatly restricts the mobility of the foot. The thigh is relatively short, and the clavicle is absent, odd-toed ungulates have a long upper jaw with an extended diastema between the front and cheek teeth, giving them an elongated head. The various forms of snout between families are due to differences in the form of the premaxilla, the lacrimal bone has projecting cusps in the eye sockets and a wide contact with the nasal bone. The temporomandibular joint is high and the mandible is enlarged, rhinos have one or two horns made of agglutinated keratin, unlike the horns of even-toed ungulates, which have a bony core. The number and form of the teeth vary according to diet, the incisors and canines can be very small or completely absent, as in the two African species of rhinoceros. In the horses, usually only the males possess canines, the surface shape and height of the molars is heavily dependent on whether soft leaves or hard grass makes up the main component of their diets. Three or four teeth are present on each jaw half, so the dental formula of odd-toed ungulates is
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Dinocerata
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Dinocerata is an extinct order of plant-eating, rhinoceros-like hoofed creatures famous for their paired horns and tusk-like canine teeth. The earliest dinoceratan, Prodinoceras, appeared in Asia during the Paleocene, dinoceratans lived alongside another group of large Eocene plant-eaters, the brontotheres. The most famous dinoceratan is Uintatherium, how dinoceratans are related to other mammals is in dispute. They are probably part of the hoofed mammal group and have similarities with some South American hoofed mammals, namely, another idea is that dinoceratans are closely related to pantodonts and tillodonts. A more controversial view is that dinoceratans descend from the anagalids, but they may be related to an ungulatomorph group called zhelestidae. Many dinoceratans are large, but they have one of the smaller brains among the mammals, distinctly smaller than those of later ungulates, although dinoceratans have traditionally been placed in the superorder Ungulatomorpha, this clade is now considered to be polyphyletic. This is the result of recent genetic and molecular research, which is rewriting the story of mammalian classification, the various members of the Ungulatomorpha are now placed in two very different lineages of placental mammals. In the case of the dinoceratans, its now believed they are related to true ungulates after all and they are suspected of being closely related to the true ungulate orders Perissodactyla and Artiodactyla. This would still make them members of Laurasiatheria, as it is impossible to extract genetic material from fossils this old, the phylogenetic position of dinoceratans may well shift again in the future. A recent phylogenetic study recovered Dinocerata as closely related to Carodnia, most experts place the known genera of Dinocerata within one family, Uintatheriidae, and split it into two subfamilies, Uintatheriinae and Gobiatheriinae. Order Dinocerata Family Uintatheriidae Subfamily Gobiatheriinae Gobiatherium Subfamily Uintatheriinae Prodinoceras Probathyopsis Bathyopsis Uintatherium Eobasileus Tetheopsis
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Arctocyonidae
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Arctocyonidae is an extinct family of unspecialized, primitive mammals with more than 20 genera. The family was most abundant during the Paleocene, but extant from the late Cretaceous to the early Eocene, however, arctocyanid teeth were not specialized for slicing meat, these animals were probably omnivorous and definitely the least herbivorous of the condylarths. Arctocyonid teeth show much variation and, because many members of this family are only known from fossil teeth. They had relatively short limbs lacking the specializations associated with ungulates, the arctocyonids were the most common mammals in Europe during the Paleocene. Archaic arctocyanids, such as Prolatidens, have found in the early Paleocene layers in Hainin. From there, this evolved into a wide variety of genera, including Arctocyon, Arctocyonides, Landenodon. A near-complete skeleton of the North American Chriacus, an early arctocyonid and this raccoon-like animal had powerful limb muscles and a long, robust, and maybe prehensile tail. Capable of both balancing in a tree and digging, it was adapted to both an arboreal and a terrestrial life, larger arctocyonids spent most of their time on the forest floor, but were probably still able to climb trees. Large arctocyonids include, Arctocyon features the characteristics of the entire family and this robust, bear-sized animal was a plantigrade ungulate with short limbs, its feet had claws and it had a long tail. It had a long skull equipped with a sagittal crest and large canines. It had low-crowned, bunodont molars similar to modern bears, the related subfamily Arctocyonides were smaller and more slender. Mentoclaenodon was, judging from the material available on the genus. Mammoths, Sabertooths, and Hominids,65 Million Years of Mammalian Evolution in Europe
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Mesonychid
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Mesonychia is an extinct taxon of small- to large-sized carnivorous ungulates related to the cetartiodactyls. Mesonychids first appeared in the early Paleocene, went into a decline at the end of the Eocene. Early mesonychids probably walked on the flats of their feet, while later ones walked on their toes and these later mesonychids had hooves, one on each toe, with four toes on each foot. Mesonychids probably originated in Asia, where the most primitive mesonychid and they were also most diverse in Asia, where they occur in all major Paleocene faunas. One genus, Dissacus, had spread to Europe and North America by the early Paleocene. Species of the genus, Pachyaena, entered North America by the earliest Eocene. Mesonychids in North America were by far the largest predatory mammals during the early Paleocene to middle Eocene, the mesonychids bore a strong, albeit superficial, resemblance to wolves. Like running members of the ungulates, mesonychids walked on their digits. These wolves on hooves were probably one of the more important predator groups in the late Paleocene and Eocene ecosystems of Europe, Asia, mesonychid dentition consisted of molars modified to generate vertical shear, thin blade-like lower molars, and carnassial notches, but no true carnassials. The molars were laterally compressed and often blunt, and were used for shearing meat or crushing bones. Many species are suspected of being fish-eaters, and the largest species are considered to have been scavengers, nearly all mesonychids are, on average, larger than most of the Paleocene and Eocene creodonts and miacoid carnivorans. The order is referred to by its older name Acreodi. Technically speaking, the term refers specifically only to the members of the family Mesonychidae. However, as the order is also renamed for Mesonyx, the term mesonychid is now used to refer to members of the entire order Mesonychia, a recent study found mesonychians to be basal euungulates most closely related to the arctocyonids Mimotricentes, Deuterogonodon and Chriacus. Mesonychids possess unusual triangular teeth that are similar to those of Cetacea, especially those of the archaeocetes, as well as having similar skull anatomies. However, the grouping of whales with hippopotami in cladistic analyses only surfaces following the deletion of Andrewsarchus. One possible conclusion is that Andrewsarchus is not a mesonychid, the current uncertainty may, in part, reflect the fragmentary nature of the remains of some crucial fossil taxa, such as Andrewsarchus. Paleocene Mammals of the World, Carnivores, Creodonts and Carnivorous Ungulates Mesonychids in Cryptozoology
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Even-toed ungulate
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The even-toed ungulates are ungulates whose weight is borne equally by the third and fourth toes. By contrast, odd-toed ungulates, such as horses, bear their weight primarily on their third toe, the aquatic cetaceans evolved from within even-toed ungulates, and therefore modern taxonomic classification sometimes combines Artiodactyla and Cetacea into Cetartiodactyla. The oldest fossils of even-toed ungulates date back to the early Eocene, since these findings almost simultaneously appeared in Europe, Asia, and North America, it is very difficult to accurately determine the origin of artiodactyls. The fossils are classified as belonging to the family Dichobunidae, their best-known and these were small animals, some as small as a hare, with a slim build, lanky legs, and a long tail. The hind legs were longer than the front legs. The early to middle Eocene saw the emergence of the ancestors of most of todays mammals, two formerly widespread, but now extinct, families of even-toed ungulates were Enteledontidae and Anthracotheriidae. Entelodonts existed from the middle Eocene to the early Miocene in Eurasia and they had a stocky body with short legs and a massive head, which was characterized by two humps on the lower jaw bone. Anthracotheres had a large, porcine build, with short legs and this group appeared in the middle Eocene up until the Pliocene, and spread throughout Eurasia, Africa, and North America. Anthracothereres are thought to be the ancestors of hippos, and, likewise, hippopotamuses appeared in the late Miocene and occupied Africa and Asia – they never got to the Americas. The camels were, during parts of the Cenozoic, limited to North America. Among the North American camels were groups like the stocky, short-legged Merycoidodontidae and they first appeared in the late Eocene and developed a great diversity of species in North America. Only in the late Miocene or early Pliocene did they migrate from North America into Eurasia, the North American varieties became extinct around 10,000 years ago. Suina have been around since the Eocene, in the late Eocene or the Oligocene, two families stayed in Eurasia and Africa, the peccaries, which became extinct in the Old World, exist today only in the Americas. South America was settled by even-toed ungulates only in the Pliocene, with only the peccaries, lamoids, and various species of capreoline deer, South America has comparatively fewer artiodactyl families than other continents. The classification of artiodactyls was hotly debated because the ocean-dwelling cetaceans evolved from the land-dwelling even-toed ungulates, some semiaquatic even-toed ungulates are more closely related to the ocean-dwelling cetaceans than to the other even-toed ungulates. This makes the Artiodactyla as traditionally defined an invalid paraphyletic taxon, since it includes animals descended from a common ancestor, phylogenetic classification only recognizes monophyletic taxa, that is, groups that descend from a common ancestor and include all its descendants. To address this problem, the traditional order Artiodactyla and infraorder Cetacea are sometimes subsumed into the more inclusive Cetartiodactyla taxon, an alternative approach is to include both land-land dwelling even toed ungulates and ocean-dwelling cetaceans in a revised Artiodactyla taxon. Order Artiodactyla/Clade CetartiodactylaSuborder Tylopoda Family †Anoplotheriidae, molecular biology involves sequencing an organisms DNA and RNA and comparing the sequence with that of other living beings – the more similar they are, the more closely they are related
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Cetacea
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Cetacea are a widely distributed and diverse clade of aquatic mammals that today consists of the whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Most species live in the sea, some in rivers, the name is derived from the Latin cetus whale and Greek ketos huge fish. The extinct ancestors of modern whales are the Archaeoceti, while cetaceans were historically thought to have descended from mesonychids, molecular evidence supports them as a relative of Artiodactyls. Cetaceans belong to the order Cetartiodactyla and their closest living relatives are hippopotamuses and other hoofed mammals, having diverged about 50 million years ago. Cetaceans range in size from the 1 m and 50 kg Mauis dolphin to the 29.9 m and 190,000 kg blue whale and they have streamlined bodies and two limbs that are modified into flippers. Dolphins are able to very tight turns while swimming at high speeds. The hindlimbs of cetaceans are internal, and are thought to be vestigial, baleen whales have short hairs on their mouth, unlike the toothed whales. Cetaceans have well-developed senses—their eyesight and hearing are adapted for both air and water, and baleen whales have a system in their vibrissae. They have a layer of fat, or blubber, under the skin to maintain body heat in cold water, Some species are well adapted for diving to great depths. Although cetaceans are widespread, most species prefer the waters of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. They spend their lives in the water, having to mate, give birth, molt or escape predators, like killer whales. This has drastically affected their anatomy to be able to do so and they feed largely on fish and marine invertebrates, but a few, like the killer whale, feed on large mammals and birds, such as penguins and seals. Some baleen whales are specialised for feeding on benthic creatures, male cetaceans typically mate with more than one female, although the degree of polygyny varies with the species. Cetaceans are not shown to have pair bonds, male cetacean strategies for reproductive success vary between herding females, defending potential mates from other males, or whale song which attracts mates. Calves are typically born in the fall and winter months, cetaceans produce a number of vocalizations, notably the clicks and whistles of dolphins, the moaning songs of the humpback whale. The meat, blubber and oil of cetaceans have traditionally used by indigenous peoples of the Arctic. Cetaceans have been depicted in cultures worldwide. Dolphins are commonly kept in captivity and are sometimes trained to perform tricks and tasks
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Horse
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The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. It is an ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, Eohippus, into the large, humans began to domesticate horses around 4000 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior. Horses anatomy enables them to use of speed to escape predators and they have a well-developed sense of balance. Related to this need to flee from predators in the wild is an unusual trait, female horses, called mares, carry their young for approximately 11 months, and a young horse, called a foal, can stand and run shortly following birth. Most domesticated horses begin training under saddle or in harness between the ages of two and four and they reach full adult development by age five, and have an average lifespan of between 25 and 30 years. There are more than 300 breeds of horse in the world today, horses were historically used in warfare, from which a wide variety of riding and driving techniques developed, using many different styles of equipment and methods of control. Many products are derived from horses, including meat, milk, hide, hair, bone, humans provide domesticated horses with food, water and shelter, as well as attention from specialists such as veterinarians and farriers. Specific terms and specialized language are used to describe equine anatomy, different life stages, colors, depending on breed, management and environment, the modern domestic horse has a life expectancy of 25 to 30 years. Uncommonly, a few animals live into their 40s and, occasionally, the oldest verifiable record was Old Billy, a 19th-century horse that lived to the age of 62. In modern times, Sugar Puff, who had listed in Guinness World Records as the worlds oldest living pony. The exception is in endurance riding, where the age to compete is based on the animals actual calendar age. The following terminology is used to describe horses of various ages, Colt, a common terminology error is to call any young horse a colt, when the term actually only refers to young male horses. Filly, A female horse under the age of four, foal, A horse of either sex less than one year old. A nursing foal is sometimes called a suckling and a foal that has been weaned is called a weanling, most domesticated foals are weaned at five to seven months of age, although foals can be weaned at four months with no adverse physical effects. Gelding, A castrated male horse of any age, mare, A female horse four years old and older
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Rhinoceros
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A rhinoceros, often abbreviated to rhino, is one of any five extant species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Rhinocerotidae, as well as any of the numerous extinct species. Two of these extant species are native to Africa and three to Southern Asia and they generally eat leafy material, although their ability to ferment food in their hindgut allows them to subsist on more fibrous plant matter, if necessary. Unlike other perissodactyls, the two African species of rhinoceros lack teeth at the front of their mouths, relying instead on their lips to pluck food. Rhinoceros are killed by humans for their horns, which are bought and sold on the market. East Asia, specifically Vietnam, is the largest market for rhino horns, by weight, rhino horns cost as much as gold on the black market. People grind up the horns and then consume them believing the dust has therapeutic properties, the horns are made of keratin, the same type of protein that makes up hair and fingernails. Both African species and the Sumatran rhinoceros have two horns, while the Indian and Javan rhinoceros have a single horn, the IUCN Red List identifies three of the species as critically endangered. The word rhinoceros is derived through Latin from the Ancient Greek, ῥῑνόκερως, the plural in English is rhinoceros or rhinoceroses. The collective noun for a group of rhinoceroses is crash or herd, the name has been in use since the 14th century. The family Rhinocerotidae consists of four extant genera, Ceratotherium, Dicerorhinus. The living species fall into three categories, the two African species, the white rhinoceros and the black rhinoceros, belong to the tribe Dicerotini, which originated in the middle Miocene, about 14.2 million years ago. The species diverged during the early Pliocene, the main difference between black and white rhinos is the shape of their mouths – white rhinos have broad flat lips for grazing, whereas black rhinos have long pointed lips for eating foliage. There are two living Rhinocerotini species, the Indian rhinoceros and the Javan rhinoceros, which diverged from one another about 10 million years ago, the Sumatran rhinoceros is the only surviving representative of the most primitive group, the Dicerorhinini, which emerged in the Miocene. A subspecific hybrid white rhino was bred at the Dvůr Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic in 1977, interspecific hybridisation of black and white rhinoceros has also been confirmed. While the black rhinoceros has 84 chromosomes, all other species have 82 chromosomes. However, chromosomal polymorphism might lead to varying chromosome counts, for instance, in a study there were three northern white rhinoceroses with 81 chromosomes. There are two subspecies of rhinoceros, the southern white rhinoceros and the northern white rhinoceros. As of 2013, the subspecies has a wild population of 20,405 – making them the most abundant rhino subspecies in the world
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Cattle
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Cattle—colloquially cows—are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, cattle are raised as livestock for meat, as dairy animals for milk and other dairy products, and as draft animals. Other products include leather and dung for manure or fuel, in some regions, such as parts of India, cattle have significant religious meaning. From as few as 80 progenitors domesticated in southeast Turkey about 10,500 years ago, according to an estimate from 2011, in 2009, cattle became one of the first livestock animals to have a fully mapped genome. Some consider cattle the oldest form of wealth, and cattle raiding consequently one of the earliest forms of theft. Cattle were originally identified as three species, Bos taurus, the European or taurine cattle, Bos indicus, the zebu, and the extinct Bos primigenius. The aurochs is ancestral to both zebu and taurine cattle and these have been reclassified as one species, Bos taurus, with three subspecies, Bos taurus primigenius, Bos taurus indicus, and Bos taurus taurus. Complicating the matter is the ability of cattle to interbreed with other related species. Hybrid individuals and even breeds exist, not only between taurine cattle and zebu, but also one or both of these and some other members of the genus Bos – yaks, banteng. Hybrids such as the breed can even occur between taurine cattle and either species of bison, leading some authors to consider them part of the genus Bos. However, cattle cannot successfully be hybridized with more distantly related bovines such as water buffalo or African buffalo, the aurochs originally ranged throughout Europe, North Africa, and much of Asia. In historical times, its range became restricted to Europe, breeders have attempted to recreate cattle of similar appearance to aurochs by crossing traditional types of domesticated cattle, creating the Heck cattle breed. Cattle did not originate as the term for bovine animals and it was borrowed from Anglo-Norman catel, itself from medieval Latin capitale principal sum of money, capital, itself derived in turn from Latin caput head. Cattle originally meant movable personal property, especially livestock of any kind, the word is a variant of chattel and closely related to capital in the economic sense. The term replaced earlier Old English feoh cattle, property, which today as fee. The word cow came via Anglo-Saxon cū, from Common Indo-European gʷōus = a bovine animal, compare Persian gâv, Sanskrit go-, Welsh buwch. The plural cȳ became ki or kie in Middle English, and a plural ending was often added, giving kine, kien. This is the origin of the now archaic English plural, kine, the Scots language singular is coo or cou, and the plural is kye
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Pig
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A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig and its ancestor, the common Eurasian wild boar, along with species, related creatures outside the genus include the peccary, the babirusa. Pigs, like all suids, are native to the Eurasian and African continents, juvenile pigs are known as piglets. Pigs are highly social and intelligent animals, with around 1 billion individuals alive at any time, the domesticated pig is one of the most numerous large mammals on the planet. Pigs are omnivores and can consume a range of food. Pigs can harbour a range of parasites and diseases that can be transmitted to humans, because of the similarities between pigs and humans, pigs are used for human medical research. The Online Etymology Dictionary provides anecdotal evidence as well as linguistic, saying that the term derives probably from Old English *picg, found in compounds, apparently related to Low German bigge, Dutch big. Another Old English word for pig was fearh, related to furh furrow, from PIE *perk- dig and this reflects a widespread IE tendency to name animals from typical attributes or activities. Synonyms grunter, porker are from sailors and fishermens euphemistic avoidance of uttering the word pig at sea, a superstition perhaps based on the fate of the Gadarene swine and it is entirely likely that the word to call pigs, soo-ie, is similarly derived. A typical pig has a head with a long snout which is strengthened by a special prenasal bone. The snout is used to dig into the soil to find food and is an acute sense organ. There are four hoofed toes on each trotter, with the two larger central toes bearing most of the weight, but the two also being used in soft ground. The dental formula of adult pigs is 3.1.4.33.1.4.3, the rear teeth are adapted for crushing. In the male, the teeth form tusks, which grow continuously and are sharpened by constantly being ground against each other. Occasionally, captive mother pigs may savage their own piglets, often if they become severely stressed, some attacks on newborn piglets are non-fatal. Others may cause the death of the piglets and sometimes, the mother may eat the piglets and it is estimated that 50% of piglet fatalities are due to the mother attacking, or unintentionally crushing, the newborn pre-weaned animals. Scientists have recently discovered that pigs can exhibit a bias and are optimists or pessimests. In a study by the University of Lincoln,36 pigs were tested and they were placed in a room with two food bowls at each end of the room
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Giraffe
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The giraffe is a genus of African even-toed ungulate mammals, the tallest living terrestrial animals and the largest ruminants. The genus consists of eleven or more species including Giraffa camelopardalis, seven of these species are extinct, prehistoric species known from fossils, though numerous subspecies have been described and its taxonomy is not definitively set. Indeed, research into the mitochondrial and nuclear DNA of Giraffa has suggested to recognize four to six extant species. The giraffes chief distinguishing characteristics are its long neck and legs, its horn-like ossicones. It is classified under the family Giraffidae, along with its closest extant relative, each of the four species is distinguished by its coat patterns and genetics. Its scattered range extends from Chad in the north to South Africa in the south, Giraffes usually inhabit savannahs and woodlands. Their food source is leaves, fruits and flowers of plants, primarily acacia species. Giraffes may be preyed on by lions, leopards, spotted hyenas, Giraffes live in herds of related females and their offspring, or bachelor herds of unrelated adult males, but are gregarious and may gather in large aggregations. Males establish social hierarchies through necking, which are combat bouts where the neck is used as a weapon, dominant males gain mating access to females, which bear the sole responsibility for raising the young. The giraffe has intrigued various cultures, both ancient and modern, for its appearance, and has often been featured in paintings, books. It is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as Vulnerable to extinction, the name giraffe has its earliest known origins in the Arabic word zarāfah, perhaps borrowed from the animals Somali name geri. The Arab name is translated as fast-walker, there were several Middle English spellings, such as jarraf, ziraph, and gerfauntz. The Italian form giraffa arose in the 1590s, the modern English form developed around 1600 from the French girafe. Camelopard is an archaic English name for the giraffe deriving from the Ancient Greek for camel and leopard, referring to its camel-like shape, living giraffes were originally classified as one species by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. He gave it the binomial name Cervus camelopardalis, morten Thrane Brünnich classified the genus Giraffa in 1772. The species name camelopardalis is from Latin, the giraffe belongs to the suborder Ruminantia. Many ruminants have been described from the mid-Eocene in Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the earliest ruminants date back to about 50 million years ago. The Rumanantia arose from early artiodactyls, which experienced adaptive radiation in the middle Eocene period that led to related to herbivory
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Camel
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A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as humps on its back. Bactrian camels take their name from the historical Bactria region of Central Asia, the term camel is derived via Latin and Greek from Hebrew or Phoenician gāmāl. Most of the camels are dromedaries while Bactrian camels and wild Bactrian camels make up only 6% of the total camel population. Camel may also be used broadly to describe any of the seven camel-like mammals in the family Camelidae. The average life expectancy of a camel is 40 to 50 years, a full-grown adult camel stands 1.85 m at the shoulder and 2.15 m at the hump. Camels can run at up to 65 km/h in short bursts, Bactrian camels weigh 300 to 1,000 kg and dromedaries 300 to 600 kg. For instance, the speed for the one humped camel is about 40 km/hour while the two humped camel has around 27.2 km/hour. The male dromedary camel has in its throat an organ called a dulla and it resembles a long, swollen, pink tongue hanging out of the side of its mouth. Camels mate by having both male and female sitting on the ground, with the male mounting from behind, the male usually ejaculates three or four times within a single mating session. Camelids are the ungulates to mate in a sitting position. Camels do not directly store water in their humps as was commonly believed. In hot and dry environments, within 8 to 10 days only the dromedary camels might consume water which during this period the third of their bodys weight may be reduced due to the dehydration. When this tissue is metabolized, it more than one gram of water for every gram of fat processed. This fat metabolization, while releasing energy, causes water to evaporate from the lungs during respiration, overall, Camels have a series of physiological adaptations that allow them to withstand long periods of time without any external source of water. Unlike other mammals, their red cells are oval rather than circular in shape. Camels are able to withstand changes in temperature and water consumption that would kill most other animals. Their temperature ranges from 34 °C at dawn and steadily increases to 40 °C by sunset, in general, to compare between camels and the other livestock, camels lose only 1. Camels rarely sweat, even when ambient temperatures reach 49 °C, any sweat that does occur evaporates at the skin level rather than at the surface of their coat, the heat of vaporization therefore comes from body heat rather than ambient heat
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Deer
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Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the deer and the chital, and the Capreolinae, including the elk, reindeer, the Western roe deer. Female reindeer, and male deer of all species, grow, in this they differ from permanently horned antelope, which are in the same order, Artiodactyla. The musk deer of Asia and water chevrotain of tropical African and Asian forests are not usually regarded as true deer and form their own families, Moschidae and Tragulidae, respectively. Deer appear in art from Palaeolithic cave paintings onwards, and they have played a role in mythology, religion and their economic importance includes the use of their meat as venison, their skins as soft, strong buckskin, and their antlers as handles for knives. Deer hunting has been a sport since at least the Middle Ages. Deer live in a variety of biomes, ranging from tundra to the tropical rainforest, while often associated with forests, many deer are ecotone species that live in transitional areas between forests and thickets and prairie and savanna. The majority of deer species inhabit temperate mixed deciduous forest, mountain mixed coniferous forest, tropical seasonal/dry forest. Clearing open areas within forests to some extent may actually benefit deer populations by exposing the understory and allowing the types of grasses, weeds, additionally, access to adjacent croplands may also benefit deer. However, adequate forest or brush cover must still be provided for populations to grow, however, fallow deer have been introduced to South Africa. There are also species of deer that are highly specialized, and live almost exclusively in mountains, grasslands, swamps. Some deer have a distribution in both North America and Eurasia. Examples include the caribou that live in Arctic tundra and taiga and moose that inhabit taiga, huemul deer of South Americas Andes fill the ecological niches of the ibex and wild goat, with the fawns behaving more like goat kids. Mountain slope habitats vary from moist coniferous/mixed forested habitats to dry forests with alpine meadows higher up. The foothills and river valleys between the mountain provide a mosaic of cropland and deciduous parklands. The rare woodland caribou have the most restricted range living at altitudes in the subalpine meadows. Elk and mule deer both migrate between the alpine meadows and lower coniferous forests and tend to be most common in this region, elk also inhabit river valley bottomlands, which they share with White-tailed deer. They also live in the aspen parklands north of Calgary and Edmonton, the adjacent Great Plains grassland habitats are left to herds of elk, American bison, and pronghorn antelope
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Hippopotamus
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The common hippopotamus, or hippo, is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae, the other being the pygmy hippopotamus. The name comes from the ancient Greek for river horse, after the elephant and rhinoceros, the common hippopotamus is the third-largest type of land mammal and the heaviest extant artiodactyl. The common ancestor of whales and hippos split from other even-toed ungulates around 60 million years ago, the earliest known hippopotamus fossils, belonging to the genus Kenyapotamus in Africa, date to around 16 million years ago. Despite its stocky shape and short legs, it is capable of running 30 km/h over short distances, the hippopotamus is a highly aggressive and unpredictable animal and is ranked among the most dangerous animals in Africa. Nevertheless, they are threatened by habitat loss and poaching for their meat. The common hippopotamus is semiaquatic, inhabiting rivers, lakes and mangrove swamps, during the day, they remain cool by staying in the water or mud, reproduction and childbirth both occur in water. They emerge at dusk to graze on grasses, while hippopotamuses rest near each other in the water, grazing is a solitary activity and hippos are not territorial on land. The Latin word hippopotamus is derived from the ancient Greek ἱπποπόταμος, hippopotamos, from ἵππος, hippos, horse, in English, the plural is hippopotamuses, but hippopotami is also used, hippos can be used as a short plural. Hippopotamuses are gregarious, living in groups of up to thirty animals, a group is called a pod, herd, dale, or bloat. The hippopotamus is the genus of the family Hippopotamidae. The pygmy hippopotamus belongs to a different genus in Hippopotamidae, either Choeropsis or Hexaprotodon, Hippopotamidae are sometimes known as hippopotamids. Sometimes, the subfamily Hippopotaminae is used, further, some taxonomists group hippopotamuses and anthracotheres in the superfamily Anthracotheroidea. Hippopotamidae are classified along with other even-toed ungulates in the order Artiodactyla, other artiodactyls include camels, cattle, deer and pigs, although hippopotamuses are not closely related to these groups. Genetic analyses have tested the existence of three of these putative subspecies, a study examining mitochondrial DNA from skin biopsies taken from 13 sampling locations, considered genetic diversity and structure among hippo populations across the continent. The authors found low, but significant, genetic differentiation among H. a. amphibius, H. a. capensis, neither H. a. tschadensis nor H. a. constrictus has been tested. Until 1909, naturalists grouped hippos with pigs, based on molar patterns, the common ancestor of hippos and whales branched off from Ruminantia and the rest of the even-toed ungulates, the cetacean and hippo lineages split soon afterwards. The most recent theory of the origins of Hippopotamidae suggests that hippos and this hypothesized ancestral group likely split into two branches around 54 million years ago. All branches of the anthracotheres, except that which evolved into Hippopotamidae, merycopotamus, Libycosaurus and all hippopotamids can be considered to form a clade, with Libycosaurus being more closely related to hippos
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Hoof
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A hoof, plural hooves or hoofs /ˈhʊfs/, is the tip of a toe of an ungulate mammal, strengthened by a thick, horny, keratin covering. Artiodactyls are even-toed ungulates, meaning that species have an even number of digits on each foot. Ruminants, with two digits, are the largest group. Examples include deer, bison, cattle, goats and sheep, perissodactyls have an odd number of toes. Examples of perissodactyl mammals are horses, rhinoceroses and tapirs, hooves are generally cited as limb structures restricted to placental mammals, which unlike other mammal groups undergo prolonged pregnancies. However, the marsupial Chaeropus had hooves, the hoof surrounds the distal end of the second phalanx, the distal phalanx, and the navicular bone. The hoof consists of the wall, the bars of the hoof. The weight of the animal is normally borne by both the sole and the edge of the hoof wall, numerous factors can affect hoof structure and health, including genetics, hoof conformation, environmental influences, and athletic performance of the animal. The ideal hoof has a parallel hoof-pastern axis, a hoof wall, adequate sole depth. There are four layers within the wall of the hoof. From the outside, a hoof is made up of the stratum externum, the medium, the stratum internum. The stratum externum and the medium are difficult to distinguish, the stratum externum is thin. Inside the hoof wall is a junction, a soft tissue structure that allows the hoof to withstand the demands of force transmission it undergoes. This tissue structure binds the surface of the hoof wall, the dermis parietis. Most even-toed ungulates have two main hooves on each foot, together called a cloven hoof, in the mountain goat, the dewclaw serves to provide extra traction when descending rocky slopes as well as additional drag on loose or slippery surfaces made of ice, dirt, or snow. Other cloven-hooved animals have no dewclaws, some odd-toed ungulates have one hoof on each foot, others have three distinct hooved or heavily nailed toes, or one hoof and two dewclaws. The tapir is a case, having three toes on each hind foot and four toes on each front foot. In nature, wild animals are capable of wearing down the hoof as it continuously grows, proper care improves biomechanical efficiency and prevents lameness
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Morphology (biology)
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Morphology is a branch of biology dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features. This includes aspects of the appearance, i. e. external morphology, as well as the form and structure of the internal parts like bones and organs. This is in contrast to physiology, which deals primarily with function, Morphology is a branch of life science dealing with the study of gross structure of an organism or taxon and its component parts. The word morphology is from the Ancient Greek don, morphé, meaning form, among other important theorists of morphology are Lorenz Oken, Georges Cuvier, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Richard Owen, Karl Gegenbaur and Ernst Haeckel. In English-speaking countries, the term molecular morphology has been used for time for describing the structure of compound molecules, such as polymers. Comparative Morphology is analysis of the patterns of the locus of structures within the plan of an organism. Functional Morphology is the study of the relationship between the structure and function of morphological features, experimental Morphology is the study of the effects of external factors upon the morphology of organisms under experimental conditions, such as the effect of genetic mutation. Anatomy is a branch of morphology that deals with the structure of organisms, most taxa differ morphologically from other taxa. Typically, closely related taxa differ much less than more distantly related ones, cryptic species are species which look very similar, or perhaps even outwardly identical, but are reproductively isolated. Conversely, sometimes unrelated taxa acquire a similar appearance as a result of convergent evolution or even mimicry, in addition, there can be morphological differences within a species, such as in Apoica flavissima where queens are significantly smaller than workers. A further problem with relying on morphological data is that what may appear, morphologically speaking, the significance of these differences can be examined through the use of allometric engineering in which one or both species are manipulated to phenocopy the other species. Invention and development of microscopy enable the observation of 3-D cell morphology with both spatial and temporal resolution. The dynamic processes of cell morphology which are controlled by a complex system play an important role in varied important biological process, such as immune. Comparative anatomy Insect morphology Morphometrics Neuromorphology Phenetics Phenotype Phenotypic plasticity Plant morphology
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Ruminant
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Ruminants are 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 process typically requires the fermented ingesta to be regurgitated and chewed again, the process of rechewing the cud to further break down plant matter and stimulate digestion is called rumination. The word ruminant comes from the Latin ruminare, which means to chew over again, the roughly 150 species of ruminants includes both domestic and wild species. Ruminating mammals include cattle, goats, sheep, giraffes, yaks, deer, antelope and it has also been suggested that notoungulates also relied on rumination, as opposed to other antlantogenates that relied on the more typical hindgut fermentation, though this is not entirely certain. Taxonomically, the suborder Ruminantia is a lineage of herbivorous artiodactyls that includes the most advanced, the term ruminant is not synonymous with Ruminantia. The suborder Ruminantia includes many ruminant species, but does not include tylopods, the primary difference between a ruminant and nonruminant is that ruminants have a four-compartment stomach. The four parts are the rumen, reticulum, omasum, in the first two chambers, the rumen and the reticulum, the food is mixed with saliva and separates into layers of solid and liquid material. Solids clump together to form the cud or bolus, the cud is then regurgitated and chewed to completely mix it with saliva and to break down the particle size. Fiber, especially cellulose and hemicellulose, is broken down in these chambers by microbes into the three volatile fatty acids, acetic acid, propionic acid, and butyric acid. Protein and nonstructural carbohydrate are also fermented, though the rumen and reticulum have different names, they represent the same functional space as digesta can move back and forth between them. Together, these chambers are called the reticulorumen, after this, the digesta is moved to the true stomach, the abomasum. The abomasum is the equivalent of the monogastric stomach. Digesta is finally moved into the intestine, where the digestion and absorption of nutrients occurs. Microbes produced in the reticulorumen are also digested in the small intestine, fermentation continues in the large intestine in the same way as in the reticulorumen. Only small amounts of glucose are absorbed from dietary carbohydrates, most dietary carbohydrates are fermented into VFAs in the rumen. The VFA propionate is used for around 70% of the glucose and glycogen produced, also, some mammals are pseudoruminants, which have a three-compartment stomach instead of four like ruminants. Pseudoruminants, like traditional ruminants, are foregut fermentors and most ruminate or chew cud, however, their anatomy and method of digestion differs significantly from that of a four-chambered ruminant. Monogastric herbivores, such as rhinoceroses, horses, and rabbits, are not ruminants and these hindgut fermenters digest cellulose in an enlarged cecum through the reingestion of the cecotrope
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Orycteropodidae
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Orycteropodidae is a family of afrotherian mammals. Although there are fossil species, the only species surviving today is the aardvark. Orycteropodidae is recognized as the family within the order Tubulidentata. Only recently did scientists discover that the aardvark and the anteater evolved from two different families and separated the two species and they were classified in the order Edentata due to their similar physical characteristics and diets. The phylogeny of this family has never been fully analyzed, making it hard to trace back the history. Orycteropodidae members are polygynous, the females providing care for the young and they are territorial, and only cross paths to breed. The males genitals create a musk while females create this musk from glands in their elbows, the gestation period lasts about 7 months, and they are dependent upon the mother until they are 6 months of age, becoming sexually mature at 2 years of age. Breeding occurs once a year, they produce one offspring, and they are thought to be closely related to the now extinct Ptolemaiida, a lineage of carnivorous afrotheres. The family arose in Africa in the Early Miocene Epoch, most of the familys diversity had become extinct by the end of the Pliocene. Aardvarks are myrmecophagous, feeding almost exclusively on termites and ants and they rely on their sense of smell to find most of their food and hunt at night. A few anatomical characters unite the Orycteropodidae and Tubulidentata, the occipital region has extensive mastoid exposure the teeth have a distinctive structure called tubulidentate microstructure. These animals lack incisors and canines, and have between 20-22 teeth and these teeth also lack enamel, and are just rounded structures of dentine. The teeth are evergrowing, unrooted, and diphyodont, another unique trait is that their small milk teeth are lost before the animal is born. The femur has a pectineal tubercle the diaphysis of the tibia is curved This classification follows Lehmann 2009, phylogeny and systematics of the Orycteropodidae. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, Lehmann, Thomas, Vignaud, Patrick, Likius, Andossa, Brunet, Michel. A new species of Orycteropodidae in the Mio-Pliocene of northern Chad, zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. Mammal Species of the World, A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference,18, Svedberg, Theodor to Two-hybrid and Related Systems. A sub-complete fossil aardvark from the Upper Miocene of Chad. doi,10. 1016/j. crpv.2005.12.016 MacInnes D. G. Fossil Tubulidentata from East Africa, Fossil mammals of Africa series, no.10
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Hyrax
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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 30 and 70 cm long and weigh between 2 and 5 kg. They are superficially similar to pikas or other rodents, but are closely related to elephants. Four extant species are recognised, the hyrax, the yellow-spotted rock hyrax, the western tree hyrax. Their distribution is limited to Africa and the Middle East, unlike most other browsing and grazing animals, they do not use the incisors at the front of the jaw for slicing off leaves and grass, rather, they use the molar teeth at the side of the jaw. The two upper incisors are large and tusk-like, and grow continuously through life, similar to rodents, the four lower incisors are deeply grooved comb teeth. A diastema occurs between the incisors and the cheek teeth, the dental formula for hyraxes is 1.0.4.32.0.4.3. Their mandibular motions are similar to chewing cud, but the hyrax is physically incapable of regurgitation as in the even-toed ungulates. This behaviour is referred to in a passage in the Bible which describes hyraxes as chewing the cud and this chewing behaviour may be a form of agonistic behaviour when the animal feels threatened. Hyraxes inhabit rocky terrain across sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and their feet have rubbery pads with numerous sweat glands, which may help the animal maintain its grip when quickly moving up steep, rocky surfaces. Hyraxes have stumpy toes with hoof-like nails, there are four toes on each front foot and they also have efficient kidneys, retaining water so that they can better survive in arid environments. Female hyraxes give birth to up to four young after a period between seven and eight months, depending on the species. The young are weaned at one to five months of age, hyraxes live in small family groups, with a single male that aggressively defends the territory from rivals. Where living space is abundant, the male may have access to multiple groups of females. The remaining males live solitary lives, often on the periphery of areas controlled by larger males, hyraxes have highly charged myoglobin, which has been inferred to reflect an aquatic ancestry. Hyraxes share several characteristics with elephants and the Sirenia, which have resulted in them all being placed in the taxon Paenungulata. Male hyraxes lack a scrotum and their testicles remain tucked up in their abdominal cavity next to the kidneys, the same as elephants, manatees, the tusks of hyraxes develop from the incisor teeth as do the tusks of elephants, most mammalian tusks develop from the canines. Hyraxes, like elephants, have flattened nails on the tips of their digits, the words rabbit, hare, or coney appear as terms for the hyrax in some English translations of the Bible
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Sirenia
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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 comprise the families Dugongidae, Trichechidae, †Protosirenidae, currently, four species of sirenians exist. Sirenians are classified in the clade Paenungulata, alongside the elephants and the hyraxes, the Dugongidae diverged from the Trichechidae in the late Eocene or early Oligocene. Sirenians grow to between 2.5 and 4 m in length and 1,500 kg in weight, the now extinct Stellers sea cow was the largest sirenian to have lived, and could reach lengths of 8 m and weights of 8 to 10 t. Sirenians have a large, fusiform body to prevent drag through the water and they have heavy bones that act as ballasts to counteract the buoyancy of their blubber. They have a layer of blubber and consequently are sensitive to temperature fluctuations. Sirenians are slow-moving, typically coasting at 8 km/h, but they can reach 24 km/h in short bursts and they use their strong lips to pull out seagrasses, consuming 10–15% of their body weight per day. While breathing, they hold just their nostrils above the surface, sirenians typically inhabit warm, shallow, coastal waters or rivers. They are mainly herbivorous, but have been known to consume animals such as birds, males typically mate with more than one female, and may participate in lek mating. Sirenians are K-selectors, and display parental care, the meat, oil, bones, and skins are valuable items sold in markets. Mortality is often caused by hunting by humans or other human-induced causes, such as habitat destruction, entanglement in fishing gear. Stellers sea cow went extinct due to overhunting in 1768, Sirenia, commonly sirenians, are also referred to by the common name sirens, deriving from the sirens of Greek mythology. This comes from a legend about their discovery, involving lonely sailors mistaking them for mermaids, seekoei is also the name for a hippopotamus in Afrikaans. In some Germanic languages, see can mean either a body of fresh or salt water, sirenians are classified within the cohort Afrotheria in the clade Paenungulata, alongside the Proboscidea, Hyracoidea, and two extinct orders, the Embrithopoda and Desmostylia. This clade was first established by George Gaylord Simpson in 1945 based on evidence, such as testicondy. The Paenungulata, along with the Afrotheria, are one of the most well-supported mammalian clades in molecular phylogeny, the first appearance of sirenians in the fossil record was during the early Eocene, and by the late Eocene, sirenians had significantly diversified. Inhabitants of rivers, estuaries, and nearshore waters, they were able to spread rapidly. The most primitive sirenian known to date, Prorastomus, was found in Jamaica, the first known quadrupedal sirenian was Pezosiren from the early Eocene
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Proboscidea
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The Proboscidea are a taxonomic order of afrotherian mammals containing one living family, Elephantidae, and several extinct families. This order, first described by J. Illiger in 1811, later proboscideans are distinguished by tusks and long, muscular trunks, these features are less developed or absent in early proboscideans. The earliest known proboscidean is Eritherium, followed by Phosphatherium, an animal about the size of a fox. These both date from late Paleocene deposits of Morocco, proboscideans diversified during the Eocene and early Oligocene. Several primitive families from these epochs have been described, including Numidotheriidae, Moeritheriidae and these were followed by the earliest Deinotheriidae, or hoe tuskers, which thrived during the Miocene and into the early Quaternary. Most families of Proboscidea are now extinct, many since the end of the last glacial period, nowak, Walker’s Mammals of the World, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN 0-8018-5789-9, LCCN98023686
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Elephant shrew
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One species, the North African elephant shrew, remains in the semiarid, mountainous country in the far northwest of the continent. The creature is one of the fastest small mammals, despite their weight of under half a kilogram, they have been recorded to reach speeds of 28.8 km/h. They vary in size from about 10 cm to almost 30 cm, the short-eared elephant shrew has an average size of 150 mm. Although the size of the trunk varies among species, all are able to twist it about in search of food and their lifespans are about two and a half to four years in the wild. They have large teeth, and also high-crowned cheek teeth similar to those of ungulates. Several species make a series of cleared pathways through the undergrowth, if disturbed, the pathway provides an obstacle-free escape route. Elephant shrews are not highly social animals, but many live in monogamous pairs, rhynchocyon species also dig small conical holes in the soil, bandicoot-style, but others may make use of natural crevices, or make leaf nests. Short-eared elephant shrews inhabit the dry steppes and stone deserts of southwestern Africa and they can even be found in the Namib Desert, one of the driest regions of the earth. Females drive away other females, while try to ward off other males. Although they live in pairs, the partners do not care much for each other, social behaviors are not very common and they even have separate nests. The one or two young are developed at birth, they are able to run within a few hours. Female elephant shrews undergo a cycle similar to that of human females. The elephant shrew mating period lasts for several days, after mating, the pair will return to their solitary habits. After a gestation period varying from 45 to 60 days, the female bear litters of one to three young several times a year. The young are relatively well developed, but remain in the nest for several days before venturing outside. After five days, the youngs milk diet is supplemented with mashed insects, the young then slowly start to explore their environment and hunt for insects. After about 15 days, the young begin the migratory phase of their lives. The young will then establish their own home ranges and will become active within 41–46 days
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