Afrotheria

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Translingual

Afrotheria: 1. aardvark 2. dugong 3. black and rufous elephant shrew 4. West Indian manatee 5. golden mole 6. rock hyrax 7. African bush elephant 8. tailless tenrec

Etymology

afro- +‎ Theria

Proper noun

Afrotheria

  1. A taxonomic superorder within the subclass Eutheria – the elephants, aardvarks, afrosoricids, hyraxes, sirenians, and elephant shrews.
    • 1998, Michael J. Stanhope et al., "Molecular Evidence for Multiple Origins of Insectivora and for a New Order of Endemic African Insectivore Mammals", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, volume 95, page 9971:
      Golden moles and tenrecs are therefore more closely related to aardvarks and elephants than they are to shrews, moles, and hedgehogs. Because this African clade is well supported both from a statistical and congruence perspective but is not currently recognized taxonomically, we propose the superordinal name Afrotheria.
    • 2001, William J. Murphy et al., “Resolution of the Early Placental Mammal Radiation Using Bayesian Phylogenetics”, in Science, volume 294 (in English), page 2348:
      The basal split is between Afrotheria and other placentals, at about 103 million years, and may be accounted for by the separation of South America and Africa in the Cretaceous.

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References

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