>I'd like to know, what their closer relatives are... social or solitary.
>The only animal that I know is social off hand, that is like a ferret
>are the meerkats.  But I think... they are not related?  Does anyone
>know how close they are or are not?  What about otters.  They are very
>social.  How close are they to our ferrets?
 
I am sure Bob C. is more up to date on this, but mustelid and viverrid
phylogeny (family trees) played a large part in my master's thesis, so
here goes.
 
Weasels of any kind are the closest to our ferrets (actual ancestors
aside).  In the same subfamily are the wolverines, martens, and fishers.
The other subfamilies of the family Mustelidae are the otters, the
badgers, the skunks, and the honey badger.  Meerkats, mongooses, civets
and genets are all members of the family Viverridae.  At least when I
was working on my thesis, the accepted idea was that the mustelids were
closer to dogs and the viverrids were closer to cats.  They are as
unrelated as cats and dogs and are an example of an example of two
different animals evolving similar forms.  Imagine a bat and a bird, for
an extreme case.  Or dolphins and fish.  To tell the difference easily
one need only look at the ears - mustelids ears are small and hug the
head while viverrids ears point up.
 
My master's thesis involved measuring lots of bones and seeing if I could
tie the measurements to locomotor habits (swimming, digging, and such).
One reason I picked mustelids was my ferrets!
 
Bob C., please correct any errors.  I have been out of the loop a long
time.
 
Jean
[Posted in FML issue 4083]