Extinct superfamily of carnivores
Miacoidea ("small points") is a formerparaphyletic superfamily of extinctplacental mammals that lived during thePaleocene andEocene epochs, about 66-33,9 million years ago.[ 2] [ 3] [ 4] [ 5] [ 6] [ 7] families of primitive carnivorous mammals:Miacidae (the miacids) andViverravidae (the viverravids). These mammals were basal to orderCarnivora , thecrown-group within theCarnivoramorpha .
Miacoids were mostly small carnivorous mammals, superficially reminiscent ofmartens orcivets . They probably fed on invertebrates,lizards ,birds and smallermammals likeshrews androdents , while others may have beeninsectivores . Some species werearboreal , others lived on theground . Theirteeth andskull show that the miacoids were less developed than modern carnivores.
Superfamily: †Miacoidea (Cope, 1880) ^ E. D. Cope (1880.)"On the genera of the Creodonta." Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 19:76-82 ^ J. J. Hooker (1986.)"Mammals from the Bartonian (middle/late Eocene) of the Hampshire Basin, southern England." Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History) 39(4):191-478 ^ Robert L. Carroll (1988.)"Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution." W. H. Freeman and Company, New York,Miacoidea ^ McKenna, Malcolm C.; Bell, Susan K. (1997).Classification of Mammals Above the Species Level ISBN 978-0-231-11012-9 . Retrieved16 March 2015 . ^ J. J. Flynn (1998.) "Early Cenozoic Carnivora ("Miacoidea")." In C. M. Janis, K. M. Scott and L. L. Jacobs (eds. )"Evolution of Tertiary Mammals of North America. Volume 1: Terrestrial Carnivores, Ungulates, and Ungulatelike Mammals." Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.ISBN 9780521355193 ^ T. J. Meehan and R. W. Wilson (2002)"New viverravids from the Torrejonian (Middle Paleocene) of Kutz Canyon, New Mexico and the oldest skull of the order Carnivora." Journal of Paleontology 76(6):1091-1101 ^ K. D. Rose, A. E. Chew, R. H. Dunn, M. J. Kraus, H. C. Fricke and S. P. Zack (2012)"Earliest Eocene mammalian fauna from the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum at Sand Creek Divide, southern Bighorn Basin, Wyoming." University of Michigan Papers on Paleontology 36:1-122
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