Talk:Eupleridae

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[edit] Mongoose, not Fossa, the best known.

This part is false:

"...best known is the fossa..."

The word "mongoose" is widely recognized in the English-speaking world, but the average speaker has never heard the word "fossa."

[edit]

True, but most of the animals called "mongooses" belong to Herpestidae, not Eupleridae.N. Pharris 08:40, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit]

True, but some, according to the article anyway, are. And those that are are therefore more "known" than the fossa. Even the Civit the article lists would be more widely understood than the obscure Fossa. Civit "cats" got quite a bit of press for the wierd "cat coffee" story and thier involvement in the origin of a famous disease a few years back, I think it was SARS as I recall. But hardly anyone has heard of the Fossa. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chrisrus (talk • contribs) 09:55, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Taxonomy

Are the two subfamilies monophyletic? As far as I know before being branched out of Viverridae and placed in their own family, Cryptoproctus was placed in a subfamily of its own, Galidiinae in Herpestinae (before gaining family level status) and only Fossa with Eupleres were in Euplerinae and thought then to be related. Has it been confirmed with molecular studies that these subfamilies are monophyletic?--Draco ignoramus sophomoricus (talk) 02:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

the Malagasy Carnivora are a monophyletic clade closely allied with the mongooses (see here). --Altaileopard (talk) 11:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not dought that Eupleridae is monophyletic. Its further division into these two subfamilies is what I am sceptical with. I am thinking that what may be considered apomorphies of the Galidiinae clade might be synapomorphic traits of the common Eupleridae/Herpestidae ancestor (since Galidiinae were once considered mongooses) and that the Euplerinae subfamily seems like a wastebasket taxon for more derived non-mongoose-like Eupleridae [since with traditional systematics Cryptoproctus was not included in the "Fossinae" group (Eupleres, Fossa)]. It is just a hunch but sounds reasonable I think...--Draco ignoramus sophomoricus (talk) 12:47, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Okay, sorry. Now I understand the problem. I don´t know if the two subfamilies result from DNA studies or if they are rather a heritage from the old systematic.--Altaileopard (talk) 09:12, 28 May 2008 (UTC)