There was a website people were talking about the last few days which
had a mistaken statement about the families in Carnivora.  The most
recent branches are the mustelids and procyonids.
 
Anyway, I had planned to let it pass, but a new study abstract came
out this week which may be of interest to some folks here may find
intriguing:
 
> Mol Phylogenet Evol. 2006 May 26; [Epub ahead of print]
>
> Molecular phylogeny of the Arctoidea (Carnivora): Effect of missing
> data on supertree and supermatrix analyses of multiple gene data sets.
> Fulton TL, Strobeck C.
>
> Department of Biological Sciences, CW405 Biological Sciences
> Building, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alta., Canada T6G 2E9.
>
> Phylogenetic relationships of 79 caniform carnivores were addressed
> based on four nuclear sequence-tagged sites (STS) and one nuclear
> exon, IRBP, using both supertree and supermatrix analyses. We
> recovered the three major arctoid lineages, Ursidae, Pinnipedia,
> and Musteloidea, as monophyletic, with Ursidae (bears) strongly
> supported as the basal arctoid lineage. Within Pinnipedia, Phocidae
> (true seals) were sister to the Otaroidea [Otariidae (fur seals and
> sea lions) and Odobenidae (walrus)]. Phocid subfamily and tribal
> designations were supported, but the otariid subfamily split
> between fur seals and sea lions was not. All family designations
> within Musteloidea were strongly supported: Mephitidae (skunks),
> Ailuridae (monotypic red panda), Mustelidae (weasels, badgers,
> otters), and Procyonidae (raccoons). A novel hypothesis for the
> position of the red panda was recovered, placing it as branching
> after Mephitidae and before Mustelidae+Procyonidae. Within
> Mustelidae, subfamily taxonomic changes are considered. This study
> represents the most comprehensive sampling to date of the
> Caniformia in a molecular study and contains the most complete
> molecular phylogeny for the Procyonidae. Our data set was also used
> in an empirical examination of the effect of missing data on both
> supertree and supermatrix analyses. Sequence for all genes in all
> taxa could not be obtained, so two variants of the data set with
> differing amounts of missing data were examined. The amount of
> missing data did not have a strong effect; instead, phylogenetic
> resolution was more dependent on the presence of sufficient
> informative characters. Supertree and supermatrix methods performed
> equivalently with incomplete data and were highly congruent;
> conflicts arose only in weakly supported areas, indicating that
> more informative characters are required to confidently resolve
> close species relationships.
 
A deceased long distance friend of Steve's whose memory remains dear
to our hearts loved to watch videos of Sherman who was a robustly built
tail amputee (since kithood) and laughed to see how much he moved like a
miniature bear.  He'd have found a bear root in the dog portion of the
canids for mustelids to be cool.
 
-- Sukie (not a vet, and not speaking for any of the below in my
private posts)
Recommended health resources to help ferrets and the people who love
them:
Ferret Health List
http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth
FHL Archives
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
AFIP Ferret Pathology
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
Miamiferrets
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
International Ferret Congress Critical References
http://www.ferretcongress.org
[Posted in FML issue 5297]