Talk:Anthracotherium

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anthracotherium is part of WikiProject Geology, an attempt at creating a standardized, informative, comprehensive and easy-to-use geology resource. If you would like to participate, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the project page for more information.
Stub This article has been rated as Stub-class on the quality scale.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the importance scale.
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, now in the public domain.

[edit] Strong evidence for the close relationships of hippos and whales

Boisserie et al. (2005) showed the anthracotheres to be ancestral to hippos, proving once and for all that whales and hippos are related to each other. This paper shows that anthracotheres are the missing link between whales and hippos. It also shows that whales and hippos diverged 60 million years ago from a common ancestor, probably amphibious. Thus, the cetaceans and hippos form the clade Cetancodonta.

Boissere, J.-R., F. Lihoreau, and M. Brunet. 2005. The position of Hippopotamidae within Cetartiodactyla. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 102:1537-1541.

Where do the mesonychids fit into this?--Mr Fink 19:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)