Evolution of the Rodents
Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2015 Diversity and evolution of femoral variation in Ctenohystrica Wilson, Laura A B ; Geiger, Madeleine Abstract: Despite possessing a rather generalised postcranial skeleton, rodents are on average capa- ble of a wide variety of locomotory behaviours, such as swimming, digging and climbing (Nowak, 1999). Particularly, rodents belonging to Ctenohystrica (sensu Huchon et al., 2002, and Fabre et al., 2012: Cten- odactylidae, Diatomyidae and Hystricognathi) display a diversity of locomotory styles and encompass a large range in body mass from approximately 50 g for the naked mole-rat Heterocephalus glaber to around 60 kg for the largest living rodent, the capybara Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris, consequently filling many different ecological niches (e.g. MacDonald, 2009; Wilson and Sánchez-Villagra, 2009, 2010). Moreover, this diversity is greatly expanded by the inclusion of giant extinct members such as Phoberomys, Araza- mys and Josephoartigasia that reached body masses at least seven or eight times that of the capybara (Sánchez-Villagra et al., 2003; Rinderknecht and Blanco, 2008; Rinderknecht and Bostelmann, 2011). The adaptive diversity that characterises the evolution of Ctenohystrica, and particularly the Caviomor- pha, a group that dispersed from Africa to colonise South America (Poux et al., 2006; Rowe et al., 2010) and evolved on that continent during a period of splendid isolation in the Cenozoic, has been the subject of numerous morpho-functional and evolutionary studies (e.g. Verzi et al., 2010; Wilson et al., 2010; Ál- varez et al., 2011a, b; Hautier et al., 2011, 2012; Cox et al., 2012; Geiger et al., 2013; Wilson, 2013).
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