INVESTIGADORES
PREVOSTI Francisco Juan
artículos
Título:
PHYLOGENY OF THE LARGE EXTINCT SOUTH AMERICAN CANIDS (MAMMALIA, CARNIVORA, CANIDAE) USING A “TOTAL EVIDENCE” APPROACH.
Autor/es:
PREVOSTI, F. J.
Revista:
CLADISTICS (PRINT)
Editorial:
WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC
Referencias:
Año: 2010 p. 1 - 26
ISSN:
0748-3007
Resumen:
South America currently possesses a high diversity of canids, comprising mainly small to medium-sized omnivorous species, but inthe Pleistocene there were large hypercarnivorous taxa that were assigned to Protocyon spp., Theriodictis spp., Canis gezi, Canisnehringi and Canis dirus. These fossils have never been included in phylogenies based on quantitative cladistics, but handconstructedcladograms published in the 1980s included some of them in the South American canine clade and others in the Canisclade. In this work, the phylogenetic position of the large extinct South American canids was studied using a large sample of livingand extinct canids, as well as different sources of characters (e.g. DNA and 133 osteological characters). The phylogenetic analysiscorroborates the inclusion of Theriodictis and Protocyon in the ‘‘South American clade’’, where C. gezi is also included. In addition,the position of C. dirus as a highly derived Canis species is confirmed. The simultaneous analysis supports hypercarnivory havingarisen at least three times in Caninae and once in the ‘‘South American clade’’. The combination of the phylogenetic analyses, thefossil record and divergence dates estimated in previous works suggests that at least three or four independent lineages of the ‘‘SouthAmerican clade’’ invaded South America after the establishment of the Panama bridge around 3 million years ago, plus other eventscorresponding to the immigration of Urocyon and Canis dirus.