Dissertation Research: The Phylogeny of the Creodonta and a Study of their Carnivorous Adaptations

在新生代的前半部分，克雷多塔目的成员是北美、欧亚和非洲的主要陆生食肉动物。绿牙石利用了许多与食肉目和有袋纲后来的成员相同的适应带，并且它们表现出许多相同的形态。虽然它们具有广泛的分布和重要的生态意义，但对它们的系统发育和主要的运动和摄食适应仍然很大程度上没有研究。这项研究将是首次在系统发育系统学的背景下对克雷奥登的系统发育和进化进行全面评估。它将解决克里奥多目的问题，它们与食肉目的关系，它们在真丝虫中的系统发育位置，以及几个有问题的分类群在克雷奥登塔中的位置。此外，这些系统发育信息将被用来研究与其他食肉哺乳动物的形态趋同的起源。克来登石有三次相对独立的辐射。这些与食肉动物和食肉有袋类动物的辐射一起，提供了一个极好的机会来观察第三纪陆地生态系统的汇聚进化和群落结构现象。数据将来自对博物馆标本的原始分析和出版的文献。在系统发育分析中，将使用牙齿、颅骨、颅后和推断的解剖学特征。

For the first half of the Cenozoic, members of the order Creodonta were the predominant terrestrial carnivores in North America, Eurasia, and Africa. Creodonts exploited many of the same adaptive zones as later members of the Carnivora and Marsupialia, and they exhibit many of the same morphologies. Although they had a wide distribution and great ecologic importance, the phylogeny and major locomotory and feeding adaptations of creodonts remain largely unstudied. This study will be the first comprehensive assessment of creodont phylogeny and evolution in the context of phylogenetic systematics. It will address the questions of creodont monophyly, their relationship to the Carnivora, their phylogenetic position within Eutheria, and the position of several problematic taxa within Creodonta. Furthermore, this phylogenetic information will be used to examine the origin of morphologies convergent with those seen in other carnivorous mammals. Creodonts had three relatively separate radiations. These, along with the radiations of Carnivora and carnivorous marsupials, provide an excellent chance to look at the phenomena of convergent evolution and community structure in terrestrial ecosystems of the Tertiary. Data will come from original analysis of museum specimens and from the published literature. In the phylogenetic analysis dental, cranial, postcranial, and inferred anatomical characters will be used.