Galliformes is an order of heavy-bodied ground-feeding birds that includes turkey, grouse, chicken, New World quail and Old World quail, ptarmigan, partridge, pheasant, francolin, junglefowl and the Cracidae. The name derives from "gallus", Latin for "cock" or "rooster". Common names are gamefowl or gamebirds, landfowl, gallinaceous birds, or galliforms. "Wildfowl" or just "fowl" are also often used for the Galliformes, but usually these terms also refer to waterfowl (Anseriformes), and occasionally to other commonly hunted birds. This group has about 290 species, one or more of which are found in essentially every part of the world's continents. They are rarer on islands, and in contrast to the closely related waterfowl, are essentially absent from oceanic islands—unless introduced there by humans. Several species have been domesticated during their long and extensive relationships with humans.
The Gruiformes are an order containing a considerable number of living and extinct bird families, with a widespread geographical diversity. Gruiform means "crane-like".
Traditionally, the bird order Apodiformes contained three living families: the swifts (Apodidae), the treeswifts (Hemiprocnidae), and the hummingbirds (Trochilidae). In the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, this order is raised to a superorder Apodimorphae in which hummingbirds are separated as a new order, Trochiliformes. With nearly 450 species identified to date, they are the most diverse order of birds after the passerines.
Simplicidentata is a group of mammals that includes the rodents and their closest extinct relatives. The term has historically been used as an alternative to Rodentia, contrasting the rodents with their close relatives the lagomorphs. However, Simplicidentata is now defined as including all members of Glires that share a more recent common ancestor with living rodents than with living lagomorphs. Thus, Simplicidentata is a total group that is more inclusive than Rodentia, a crown group that includes all living rodents, their last common ancestor, and all its descendants. Under this definition, the loss of the second pair of upper incisors is a synapomorphic feature of Simplicidentata. The loss of the second upper premolar (P2) has also been considered as synapomorphic for Simplicidentata, but the primitive simplicidentate Sinomylus does have a P2.
The Laotian rock rat or kha-nyou, sometimes called the "rat-squirrel", is a rodent species of the Khammouan region of Laos. The species was first described in a 2005 article by Paulina Jenkins and coauthors, who considered the animal to be so distinct from all living rodents, they placed it in a new family, Laonastidae. It is in the monotypic genus Laonastes.
Gundis or comb rats are a group of small, stocky rodents found in Africa. They live in rocky deserts across the northern parts of the continent. The family comprises four living genera and five species, as well as numerous extinct genera and species. They are in the superfamily Ctenodactyloidea. They first came to the notice of western naturalists in Tripoli in 1774, and were given the name 'gundi mice'. However, local people have always known about gundis. While they are not regarded as pests, some people hunt gundis for food.
Eosimias is a genus of early primates, first discovered and identified in 1999 from fossils collected in the Shanghuang fissure-fillings of the southern Jiangsu Province, China. It is a part of the family Eosimiidae, and includes three known species: Eosimias sinensis, Eosimias centennicus, and Eosimias dawsonae. It provides us with a glimpse of a primate skeleton similar to that of the common ancestor of the Haplorhini. The name Eosimias is designed to mean "dawn monkey", from Greek eos "dawn" and Latin simius "monkey".
Hyaenodontidae is a family of extinct predatory mammals, and is the type family of the extinct mammalian order Hyaenodonta. Hyaenodontids were important mammalian predators that arose during the late Paleocene and persisted well into the Miocene. They were considerably more widespread and successful than the oxyaenids, the other clade historically considered part of Creodonta.
The term Hystricomorpha has had many definitions throughout its history. In the broadest sense, it refers to any rodent with a hystricomorphous zygomasseteric system. This includes the Hystricognathi, Ctenodactylidae, Anomaluridae, and Pedetidae. Molecular and morphological results suggest the inclusion of the Anomaluridae and Pedetidae in Hystricomorpha may be suspect. Based on Carleton & Musser 2005, these two families are treated here as representing a distinct suborder Anomaluromorpha.
Viverravidae is an extinct family within the superfamily Miacoidea. They are related to carnivorans, and lived from the early Palaeocene to the Eocene.
Trochodendron is a genus of flowering plants with one living species, Trochodendron aralioides, and six extinct species known from the fossil record. It was often considered the sole genus in the family Trochodendraceae, though botanists now also include the distinct genus Tetracentron in the family Trochodendraceae.
The rodent family Diatomyidae, found in Asia, is represented by a single known living species, Laonastes aenigmamus.
Mary R. Dawson is a vertebrate paleontologist and curator emeritus at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The Tsaganomyidae are an extinct family of rodents from Asia. It contains three genera. Tsaganomyids are generally considered to be related to the Hystricognathi. Members of Tsaganomyidae were fossorial (digging) rodents that probably used their incisor teeth to dig like some living mole rats.
The transition between the end of the Eocene and the beginning of the Oligocene is marked by large-scale extinction and floral and faunal turnover. Most of the affected organisms were marine or aquatic in nature. They included the last of the ancient cetaceans, the Archaeoceti.
Alagomyidae is a family of rodents known from the late Paleocene and early Eocene of Asia and North America. Alagomyids have been identified as the most basal rodents, lying outside the common ancestry of living forms. Because of their phylogenetic position and their conservative dental morphology, alagomyids have played a key role in investigations of the origins and relationships of rodents.
Xiaoming Wang is a noted vertebrate paleontologist and geologist born in People's Republic of China and now living and teaching in the United States.
Asiatosuchus is an extinct genus of crocodyloid crocodilians that lived in Eurasia during the Paleogene. Many Paleogene crocodilians from Europe and Asia have been attributed to Asiatosuchus since the genus was named in 1940. These species have a generalized crocodilian morphology typified by flat, triangular skulls. The feature that traditionally united these species under the genus Asiatosuchus is a broad connection or symphysis between the two halves of the lower jaw. Recent studies of the evolutionary relationships of early crocodilians along with closer examinations of the morphology of fossil specimens suggest that only the first named species of Asiatosuchus, A. grangeri from the Eocene of Mongolia, belongs in the genus. Most species are now regarded as nomina dubia or "dubious names", meaning that their type specimens lack the unique anatomical features necessary to justify their classification as distinct species. Other species such as "A." germanicus and "A." depressifrons are still considered valid species, but they do not form an evolutionary grouping with A. grangeri that would warrant them being placed together in the genus Asiatosuchus.
Afrasia djijidae is a fossil primate that lived in Myanmar approximately 37 million years ago, during the late middle Eocene. The only species in the genus Afrasia, it was a small primate, estimated to weigh around 100 grams (3.5 oz). Despite the significant geographic distance between them, Afrasia is thought to be closely related to Afrotarsius, an enigmatic fossil found in Libya and Egypt that dates to 38–39 million years ago. If this relationship is correct, it suggests that early simians dispersed from Asia to Africa during the middle Eocene and would add further support to the hypothesis that the first simians evolved in Asia, not Africa. Neither Afrasia nor Afrotarsius, which together form the family Afrotarsiidae, is considered ancestral to living simians, but they are part of a side branch or stem group known as eosimiiforms. Because they did not give rise to the stem simians that are known from the same deposits in Africa, early Asian simians are thought to have dispersed from Asia to Africa more than once prior to the late middle Eocene. Such dispersals from Asia to Africa also were seen around the same time in other mammalian groups, including hystricognathous rodents and anthracotheres.
Urtinotherium is an extinct genus of indricothere hyracodontid mammals. It was a large animal that was closely related to Paraceratherium, and found in rocks dating from the Late Eocene to Early Oligocene period. The remains were first discovered in the Urtyn Obo region in Inner Mongolia, which the name Urtinotherium is based upon. Other referred specimens are from northern China.
