Lecture 72 What is an Afrothere?

In this lecture we will evaluate the idea of a group of mammals called the Afrotheria which was proposed in 1998, and investigate the morphological evidence to support this grouping of mammals.
For further information about the instructor: www.benjamin-bu...
To learn more about the geology department at USU: geology.usu.edu
To learn more about the Uintah Basin campus of USU: uintahbasin.usu...
Our Textbook: Benton, M.J. 2014. Vertebrate Paleontology fourth edition. Published by Wiley Blackwell Publishing. www.wiley.com/W...

[@LoveC273]

you're awesome. thank you for all these videos you are actually giving me a huge help for my mammals & evolution exam. when you talk about it is just clear and everything makes sense! thumbs up!

[@eduardofreitas8336]

Thank you Benjamin great video. What I didn't understand is, is Afrothere an accepted clade or not?

[@HuckleberryHim]

There is very good support for the monophyly of Afrotheria as it is typically defined (elephant shrews, sirenians, elephants, aardvark, hyraxes, tenrecs, golden moles, and their extinct relatives). This means almost all scientists accept it as a clade.
What is more debated is how exactly those internal relationships work, which extinct animals are part of this group (desmostylians and others), and how they relate to other placentals. Atlantogenata is a proposed clade which would group them together with Xenarthra (sloths, armadillos, anteaters) as the first surviving offshoot of placentalia. It has seen support in some papers, and less in others.

[@bristowquentin4368]

Could the link be in the nose?

[@patrickcrawley6207]

Struggling to listen to this lecture when you keep referring to the subject as ALPHAtheria. Surely is pronounced AFROtheria as in, comes from AFRICA?!!!