Re: Afrotheria revisted

["T. Michael Keesey" <keesey@gmail.com>]

> "Their long period of isolation in Africa, as assumed by molecular inferences, 
> is
> now to be reconsidered in as much as Eocene paenungulates and elephant-shrews
> are here found to be related to some Early Tertiary Euramerican "hyopsodontid
> condylarths" (archaic hoofed mammals).
> As a result, stem members of afrotherian clades are not strictly African but 
> also include
> some
> Early Paleogene Holarctic mammals."
>
> How can this be explained. Isn't there a contradiction here with the previously 
> mentioned
> findings about common ancestry of the Afrotheria? I mean, does this last part 
> not imply
> polyphyly?

AFAICT, all they're saying is that the biogeographic situation is more
complex than previously thought, right? I don't see why this shouldn't
be so ... even today there are non-African sirenians and
proboscideans, and until fairly recently there were a good deal more.

--
Mike Keesey