Feliformia

Feliformia is a suborder of Carnivora containing cats, hyenas, mongooses, civets, and related mammals. Its members share anatomical and genetic traits that distinguish them from caniform carnivorans.

Carnivora: An order of mammals that includes cats, dogs, bears, seals, and their extinct relatives. Feliformia is one of Carnivora’s two principal living suborders.
Auditory bulla: A bony capsule enclosing the middle and inner ear in mammals. Feliform ear capsules have a distinctive internal division used in classification.
Miacidae: An extinct group of small carnivorous mammals once considered ancestral to modern Carnivora. Miacid fossils illuminate early carnivoran history before living suborders were established.
African civet: A large civet species native to sub-Saharan Africa, known for its spotted coat and nocturnal habits. It exemplifies the civet family’s distinct place among living feliforms.
Feliform phylogeny: The evolutionary history and branching relationships of the feliform families. Family-level relationships within Feliformia remain a focus of comparative research.
Felidae: The mammal family comprising cats, from domestic cats to lions and tigers. Felidae is the best-known family within Feliformia.
Bulla tympanica: The part of the skull that forms the bony capsule around the middle ear. Its structure is central to traditional anatomical comparisons of feliforms and caniforms.
Viverravidae: An extinct family of early carnivorous mammals known from Paleocene and Eocene fossils. Viverravids provide evidence about the early branches near crown Carnivora.
Meerkat: A social mongoose species native to southern Africa. Its cooperative groups illustrate a behavior found in one feliform family.
Molecular phylogenetics: The study of evolutionary relationships using DNA, RNA, or protein sequences. Genetic analyses test and revise relationships inferred from anatomy and fossils.

Linked from 12 pages