>Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2009 Aug 20. [Epub ahead of print]
>Deciphering and dating the red panda's ancestry and early adaptive
>radiation of Musteloidea.
>Sato JJ, Wolsan M, Minami S, Hosoda T, Sinaga MH, Hiyama K,
>Yamaguchi Y, Suzuki H.
>Laboratory of Animal Cell Technology, Faculty of Life Science and
>Technology, Fukuyama University, Higashimura-cho, Aza, Sanzo, 985,
>Fukuyama 729-0292, Japan.
>
>Few species have been of more disputed affinities than the red or
>lesser panda (Ailurus fulgens), an endangered endemic Southeast
>Asian vegetarian member of the placental mammalian order Carnivora.
>This peculiar carnivoran has mostly been classified with raccoons
>(Procyonidae) or bears (Ursidae), grouped with the giant panda
>(Ailuropoda melanoleuca) in their own family, or considered a separate
>lineage of equivocal ancestry. Recent molecular studies have indicated
>a close affinity of the red panda to a clade of procyonids and
>mustelids (weasels, otters, martens, badgers, and allies), but have
>failed to unambiguously resolve the position of this species relative
>to mephitids (skunks and stink badgers). We examined the relationship
>of the red panda to other extant species of the carnivoran suborder
>Caniformia using a set of concatenated approximately 5.5-kb sequences
>from protein-coding exons of five nuclear genes. Bayesian, maximum
>likelihood, and parsimony phylogenetic analyses strongly supported
>the red panda as the closest living relative of a clade containing
>Procyonidae and Mustelidae to the exclusion of Mephitidae. These three
>families together with the red panda (which is classified here as a
>single extant species of a distinct family, Ailuridae) compose the
>superfamily Musteloidea, a clade strongly supported by all our
>phylogenetic analyses as sister to the monophyletic Pinnipedia (seals,
>sea lions, walruses). The approximately unbiased, Kishino- Hasegawa,
>and Templeton topology tests rejected (P < 0.05) each of all possible
>alternative hypotheses about the relationships among the red panda and
>mephitids, procyonids, and mustelids. We also estimated divergence
>times for the red panda's lineage and ones of other caniform taxa, as
>well as the ages of the first appearance datums for the crown and
>total clades of musteloids and the total clades of the red panda,
>mephitids, procyonids, and mustelids. Bayesian relaxed molecular-clock
>analysis using combined information from all sampled genes yielded a
>approximately 42-Myr timescale to caniform evolution and provided
>evidence of five periods of increased diversification. The red panda's
>lineage and those of other extant musteloid families are estimated to
>have diverged during a 3-Myr interval from the mid-Early Oligocene to
>near the Early/Late Oligocene boundary. We present fossil evidence
>that extends the early adaptive radiation of the total clade of
>musteloids to the Eocene-Oligocene transition and also suggests
>Asia as a center of this radiation.
>
> PMID: 19699810

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