Talk:Creodonta

Hyaenodontids are not afrotherians

All pages on hyaenodontids need examined. A wikipedian has gone around editing every single page to include his personal speculation that hyaenodontids are afrotherians which is not supported anywhere in the literature. Thank you.

Because of this, I have raised this article's rank to importance with the hope of encouraging other wikipedians to go over the literature pertinent to this issue and used to enforce the claim that hyaenodontids are afrotherians and find for themselves that there is no such support.

New mammalian orders: Hyaenodontida and Oxyaenodonta

Recent papers by Sole (2013, 2014, etc) have split Creodonta into two new orders. Spaulding et al. (2009) did present a Creodonta which was made up of oxyaenids and hyaenodontids.

And it is worth noting that in Spaulding et al. (2009), Creodonta was the sister to Carnivoramorpha (though sampling of non-laurasiatheres was weak).

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That Hyaenodon is definitely digitigrade.

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I'm not certain "cats being fed a vegetarian diet would go blind" statement should be included. It's mentioned frequently in biology books for kids but it is somewhat correct and somewhat incorrect, I think. Domestic cats indeed cannot manufacture taurine and would go blind if they were to only eat fruit and leafy greens and the like, but I don't think this applies for grain-fed diets and those are also vegetarian. Afaik most dry cat and dog foods are made from grains, no meat! Perhaps we should just mention the inability to manufacture taurine and the necessity to obtain it from dietary sources to prevent blindness and death? --singe@ix.netcom.com 4:30, 27 Feb 2007 (PST)

It seems irrelebvant in an article about creodonts, it is sufficient to say they rareely eat vegetables. I removed the line. Sabine's Sunbird talk 18:33, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

It's definitely irrelevant and suspect considering we know nothing certain regarding the digestive physiology of creodonts. 71.236.93.51 (talk) 00:10, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Digitigrade?

The hyaenodon is drawn with digitigrade locomotion. Isn't it supposed to have plantigrade feet? (First poster, do you mean that it is or that it is supposed to?) 12.144.50.194 (talk) 22:45, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Hyaenodon wasn't exactly digitigrade, but, according to this skeleton, [1], it wasn't plantigrade, either. Some creodonts were fully plantigrade, whereas others were more digitigrade, just like modern carnivores, it seems. That section about plantigrade needs to be rewritten.--Mr Fink (talk) 22:56, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Dates

A variety of dates are suggested in the text and taxobox, few of them supported by in-line citations. Can we get a bit of professionalism back, please? Macdonald-ross (talk) 05:24, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Extinction

The section on Extinction has some interesting speculation but unfortunately I cannot find any sources for them. The one listed source, "Elements of Geology," is to a broken link, and the citation does not have enough bibliographical information for me to find it otherwise. I'd greatly appreciate if anyone knowledgeable about these speculations provides sources. AnthroMimus (talk) 12:33, 25 May 2015 (UTC)