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The hyrax, Procavia, now the only living notoungulate, a sister to Hegetotherium in the LRT

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This appears to be a novel hypothesis of interrelationships.
In the large reptile tree (LRT, 2340 taxa) the extant hyxrax, Procavia, nests with the extinct notoungulate, Hegetotherium.

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According to Wikipedia Notoungulata
Notoungulata is an extinct order of ungulates that inhabited South America from the early Paleocene to the end of the Pleistocene, living from approximately 61 million to 11,000 years ago.[1] Notoungulates were morphologically diverse, with forms resembling animals as disparate as rabbits and rhinoceroses. Notoungulata are the largest group of South American native ungulates, with over 150 genera in 14 families having been described, divided into two major subgroupings, Typotheria and Toxodontia.

Since hyraxes are restricted to Africa
and all other notoungulates are restricted to South America, the split between the two clades must have happened prior to the splitting of Africa from South America in the Early Cretaceous, 135–140 million years ago.

The current lack of Cretaceous notoungulate fossils parallels the current lack of Cretaceous crown bird fossils in the Cretaceous.

From wiki/Hyrax
“Hyraxes retain or have redeveloped a number of primitive mammalian characteristics; in particular, they have poorly developed internal temperature regulation, for which they compensate by behavioural thermoregulation, such as huddling together and basking in the sun.”

“Unlike most other browsing and grazing animals, they do not use the incisors at the front of the jaw for slicing off leaves and grass; rather, they use the molar teeth at the side of the jaw. The two upper incisors are large and tusk-like, and grow continuously through life, similar to those of rodents.”

Traditionally
hyraxes were linked to distinctly different elephants and manatees. That hypothesis of interrelationships is not recovered by the LRT where traits are scored (not genes) and the best matches nest together. Fossils are included in the LRT, not in gene studies.

This match took too long to recover.
With 2340 taxa, inevitably some will steal the spotlight while others are ignored and overlooked. As you build your own cladograms, keep this in mind. Take a wide-angle view. We are trying to make the best matches from a list of more or less similar yet distinct taxa under the biases of the human eye =  the human filter.

Keep ‘stirring the pot’ and you, too, will be surprised at the most unexpected yet obvious discoveries, like this one.

This Africa/South America Cretaceous rift leading to speciation story has a parallel in the ancestry of South American terror birds from African secretary birds following the last common ancestor of all crown birds in the Early Cretaceous.

This also gives paleoartists ‘permission’ to add a few more primitive birds and placentals to their dinosaur images, despite a lack of fossils at present.

References
Ameghino F 1887. Observaciones generales sobre el orden de mamíferos estinguidos sud-americanos llamados toxodontes (Toxodontia) y sinopsis de los géneros y especies hasta ahora conocidos. Anales del Museo de La Plata 1:1-66.
Pallas PS 1766. Miscellanea zoologica. AP van Cleef, La Haye, 224 pp.

wiki/Hegetotherium
wiki/Procavia
wiki/Hyrax
wiki/Notoungulata


Source: https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/2026/02/11/the-hyrax-procavia-now-the-only-living-notoungulate-a-sister-to-hegetotherium-in-the-lrt/


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