Cretaceous "Insectivora" (was Re: No Subject)

["Timothy Williams" <twilliams_alpha@hotmail.com>]

ELurio@aol.com wrote:

> BTW, insectavores are monophylitic at least as around the area
> around the KT Boundry....

Nothing could be further from the truth.  In this context, the Cretaceous 
"Insectivora" was used as a wastebasket for small, "primitive" placentals.  
It was part-and-parcel of the notion that the Insectivora represented the 
basal stock from which other placental orders evolved.  Most of these 
Cretaceous "insectivorans" were not closely related to each other, let alone 
to modern insectivorans (moles, shres, hedgehogs, tenrecs).  Some were 
probably not even true placentals: _Deltatheridium_, which may be the sister 
taxon to the Marsupialia, used to be assigned to the Insectivora.

AFAIK, there's no compelling evidence for any modern (extant) order of 
mammals existing in the Cretaceous period.  Of course, it does depend upon 
how you define said "orders"...

As for the meaning of "Lipotyphla" (does it mean "fat and blind"?), I've 
wondered what it means too.  I do know that for a short time elephant shrews 
(Macroscelidea) and tree shrews (Scandentia) were united into a group called 
the Menotyphla.


Tim



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