Musteloidea is a superfamily of carnivoran mammals united by shared characteristics of the skull and teeth. Musteloids are the sister group of pinnipeds, the group which includes seals.[1]
| Musteloidea Temporal range:
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| Left-right: spotted skunk, red panda, wolverine and raccoon; representing the families Mephitidae, Ailuridae, Mustelidae and Procyonidae. | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Carnivora |
| Infraorder: | Arctoidea |
| Superfamily: | Musteloidea Fischer, 1817 |
| Families | |
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Musteloidea comprises the following families:
- Mephitidae, the skunks and stink badgers.
- Mustelidae, the weasel (mustelid) family, including new- and old-world badgers, ferrets and polecats, fishers, grisons and ratels, martens and sables, minks, river and sea otters, stoats and ermines, tayras and wolverines.
- Procyonidae, the raccoons and raccoon-like procyonids, including coatimundis, kinkajous, olingos, olinguitos, ringtails and cacomistles.
In North America, ursids (bears) and musteloids first appeared in the Chadronian[citation needed] of the late Eocene, and in early-Oligocene Europe, immediately following the Grande Coupure extinction event.
The following cladogram is based on molecular phylogeny of six genes in Flynn (2005),[2] with the musteloids updated following the multigene analysis of Law et al. (2018).[3]
| Caniformia |
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References edit
- ^ Welsey-Hunt, G.D. & Flynn, J.J. (2005). "Phylogeny of the Carnivora: basal relationships among the Carnivoramorphans, and assessment of the position of 'Miacoidea' relative to Carnivora". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 3 (1): 1–28. Bibcode:2005JSPal...3....1W. doi:10.1017/S1477201904001518.
- ^ Flynn, J. J.; Finarelli, J. A.; Zehr, S.; Hsu, J.; Nedbal, M. A. (2005). "Molecular phylogeny of the Carnivora (Mammalia): Assessing the impact of increased sampling on resolving enigmatic relationships". Systematic Biology. 54 (2): 317–37. doi:10.1080/10635150590923326. PMID 16012099.
- ^ Law, Chris J.; Slater, Graham J.; Mehta, Rita S. (2018-01-01). "Lineage Diversity and Size Disparity in Musteloidea: Testing Patterns of Adaptive Radiation Using Molecular and Fossil-Based Methods". Systematic Biology. 67 (1): 127–144. doi:10.1093/sysbio/syx047. ISSN 1063-5157. PMID 28472434.