Endemic African mammals shake the phylogenetic tree

Mark S. Springer (), Gregory C. Cleven, Ole Madsen, Wilfried W. de Jong, Victor G. Waddell, Heather M. Amrine and Michael J. Stanhope
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Mark S. Springer: University of California
Gregory C. Cleven: University of California
Ole Madsen: University of Nijmegen
Wilfried W. de Jong: University of Nijmegen
Victor G. Waddell: §Biology and Biochemistry, Queen's University
Heather M. Amrine: University of California
Michael J. Stanhope: §Biology and Biochemistry, Queen's University

Nature, 1997, vol. 388, issue 6637, 61-64

Abstract: Abstract The order Insectivora, including living taxa (lipotyphlans) and archaic fossil forms, is central to the question of higher-level relationships among placental mammals1. Beginning with Huxley2, it has been argued that insectivores retain many primitive features and are closer to the ancestral stock of mammals than are other living groups3. Nevertheless, cladistic analysis suggests that living insectivores, at least, are united by derived anatomical features4. Here we analyse DNA sequences from three mitochondrial genes and two nuclear genes to examine relationships of insectivores to other mammals. The representative insectivores are not monophyletic in any of our analyses. Rather, golden moles are included in a clade that contains hyraxes, manatees, elephants, elephant shrews and aardvarks. Members of this group are of presumed African origin5,6. This implies that there was an extensive African radiation from a single common ancestor that gave rise to ecologically divergent adaptive types. 12S ribosomal RNA transversions suggest that the base of this radiation occurred during Africa's window of isolation in the Cretaceous period before land connections were developed with Europe in the early Cenozoic era.

Date: 1997
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DOI: 10.1038/40386

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