Tylopoda

Tylopoda (meaning "swollen foot") is a suborder of terrestrial herbivorous even-toed ungulates belonging to Artiodactyla. It is extant in the wild only in South America and Asia (feral camels are also present in Australia); the group has a long fossil history in North America and Europe. Tylopoda appeared during the Eocene around 46.2 mya—present, existing for approximately 46.2 million years.^[1]

Tylopoda has seven families of which only one, Camelidae, is extant. In the past, this group was much more diverse, containing the families Xiphodontidae, Oromerycidae, Protoceratidae, Cainotheriidae, and the two families of oreodonts, Agriochoeridae and Merycoidodontidae. However, now it contains only the camels, llamas, guanacos, alpacas and vicuñas.

Taxonomy

Tylopoda was named by Illiger (1811). It is extant. It was considered monophyletic by Matthew (1908). It was reranked as the unranked clade Tylopoda by Matthew (1908); it was reranked as the suborder Tylopoda by Carroll (1988), Ursing et al. (2000) and Whistler and Webb (2005). It was assigned to Ruminantia by Matthew (1908); to Artiodactyla by Flower (1883) and Carroll (1988); to Neoselenodontia by Whistler and Webb (2005); and to Cetartiodactyla by Ursing et al. (2000) and Agnarsson and May-Collado (2008).^[2][3][4]

References

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