MUSTELIDAE FISCHER, 1817

Wolsan, Mieczyslaw & Sotnikova, Marina, 2013, Systematics, evolution, and biogeography of the Pliocene stem meline badger Ferinestrix (Carnivora: Mustelidae), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 167 (1), pp. 208-226 : 211-212

FAMILY MUSTELIDAE FISCHER, 1817

TOTAL CLADE OF SUBFAMILY MELINAE BONAPARTE, 1838

Definition: The largest clade containing Meles meles ( Linnaeus, 1758) (Melinae) but not Mellivora capensis ( Schreber, 1776) (Mellivorinae) , Gulo gulo ( Linnaeus, 1758) (Guloninae) , Melogale moschata ( Gray, 1831) (Helictidinae) , or Taxidea taxus ( Schreber, 1778) (Taxidiinae) ( Fig. 1 ).

Diagnosis: Mustelids distinguished by the following combination of features ( Fig. 2 , Table 1): angular process of the dentary situated dorsal to or at the level of the m1 crown (character 5, state 1; this process is secondarily ventral to the level of the m1 crown in Ferinestrix vorax ); P4 protocone small and subconical to ridge-like or absent (character 6, states 1–2); P4 hypocone present (character 7, states 1–2); M1 crown placed further laterally than the P4 crown (character 8, state 1); M1 larger than P 4 in occlusal view (character 9, states 1–2); lingual outline of the M1 crown concave in occlusal view (character 10, state 1; this trait varies in Melodon ); M1 metaconule prominent (character 12, state 1); m1 talonid larger than the m1 paraconid in occlusal view (character 13, state 1); m1 talonid basined with a welldeveloped lingual wall (character 14, state 1); m1 hypoconulid prominent (character 15, state 1); at least four elevations (cusps, cuspules, or ridge-like elevations) present in the lingual wall of the m1 talonid between the metaconid and hypoconulid (character 16, state 1).

Included taxa: Melinae Bonaparte, 1838 (including Arctonyx Cuvier, 1825 and Meles Brisson, 1762 ), Arctomeles Stach, 1951 , Ferinestrix Bjork, 1970 , and Melodon Zdansky, 1924 .

Comment: The subfamilial name Melinae is used throughout this paper in a restricted sense to refer to the crown clade of meline badgers, i.e. the smallest clade containing Meles meles and Arctonyx collaris ( Fig. 1 ; Wolsan & Sato, 2010). This usage reflects the phylogenetic distinctiveness of the subfamilies Melinae, Taxidiinae, Mellivorinae , and Helictidinae, all of which contain species displaying the morpho- * Roshchin (1949) erected a new genus (which he named Parameles ) to include this species. Parameles Roshchin, 1949 is a junior homonym of Parameles Griffith in Cuvier, 1827 and Parameles de Saussure, 1869 . We regard this species as congeneric with Arctomeles pliocaenicus , and therefore we assign both species to Arctomeles Stach, 1951 , which is, to our knowledge, the oldest available name for this genus.

† Helgen et al. (2008) proposed three distinct extant species within Arctonyx . We conservatively recognize only one species, Arctonyx collaris , in agreement with Wozencraft (2005).

logical adaptations of badgers ( Fig. 1 ; Koepfli et al., 2008; Sato et al., 2012), and also follows the increasingly accepted convention that widely known taxon names are applied to crown clades ( de Queiroz, 2007 and references therein).

Figures

Figure 1. Phylogeny of Mustelidae based on the results of recent DNA investigations (Koepfli et al., 2008; Harding & Smith, 2009; Sato et al., 2009, 2012; Wolsan & Sato, 2010; Vianna et al., 2011) and this study (Fig. 2). For references to the original publications of the genus and species names, see the text and Wozencraft (2005).

Figure 2. Single most parsimonious tree (length, 21 steps; consistency index, 1.00; retention index, 1.00) obtained from parsimony analysis on a matrix of 16 characters by seven taxa (Table 1, with the pooled data for species of the same genus). Numbers above branches are bootstrap percentages (left) and decay indices (right) in support of the respective clades. Numbers below branches represent synapomorphies (characters and, in parentheses, their states) recovered for these clades under the criteria of both accelerated (ACCTRAN) and delayed (DELTRAN) transformations unless indicated by superscript A (only under ACCTRAN) or superscript D (only under DELTRAN).