Oryctos
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Accès privé :
| volume 3, 2000 |
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Norihisa Inuzuka, Preliminary Report on the Evolution of Aquatic Adaptation in Desmostylians (Mammalia, Tethytheria). Oryctos 3, 71-77.
Forty nine trends indicating aquatic adaptation are recognized based on the distribution of osteological characters in 16 species of four living mammalian taxa. Among them, 39 trends are also found in desmostylians. In the present paper their distribution is examined in four genera of Desmostylia, for which skeletons are known, i.e. Behemotops and Paleoparadoxia (family Paleoparadoxiidae), and Ashoroa and Desmostylus (family Desmostylidae). Characters inserted on the phylogenetic tree elucidate the evolution of aquatic adaptation within the order Desmostylia. The present paper introduces preliminary results: although the phylogenetic divergence of the two families shows no relation to aquatic adaptation, the Desmostylidae became more adapted to aquatic life than did the Paleoparadoxiidae, with Desmostylus representing the highest level of aquatic specialization on present fossil evidence.
Keywords: Desmostylia, aquatic adaptation, comparative morphology, functional morphology
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