Talk:River dolphin

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Hope I didn't muck up Rice's classification when reformatting the list. I might have because I don't understanding the foll:

"In the most recent classification (Rice, 1998) there are four families that make up the river dolphins. The Platanistidae is listed as the only extant family of the Platanistoidea superfamily. The previously accepted classification treated all four families as belonging to this superfamily"

Does this really mean Rice has a superfamily containing only one family? Can you have such a thing? Can anyone clarify? And please fix the list if I mucked up. Nurg 08:47, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Only one extant family, so presumably there are extinct families in this superfamily. In any case, if there one superfamily, containing a group of families, then any one other family must be another superfamily by definition. jimfbleak 10:25, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Taxonomy

It is perhaps not the best place to ask, but can anyone clarify for me term superfamily in context of Platanistoidea and river dolphins? Is Platanistoidea a monophyletic taxon? If yes, how could it occur that related species survived in so isolated and so wide distributed river habitats? If not, why all river dolphins have some features in common, particularly elongated snout? Convergent evolution? What does modern biology say about it?

Besides, taxonomy in River dolphin article shows that family Delphinidae, or ocean dolphins, is included into superfamily Platanistoidea, while taxonomy in Cetacea article treats superfamily Platanistoidea as being isometric to any other family (including Delphinidae). Which interpretation is correct? Clarifying this will help me to understand notions of sub-, super- and infra-taxons, because when I studied in school, there were no superfamilies or infraorders, and that was my last experience of formal biological education :). Verdi1 14:35, 7 May 2006 (UTC)