The
Euarchonta are a superorder of
mammalMammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose females are characterized by the possession of mammary glands while both males and females are characterized by sweat glands, hair, three middle ear bones used in hearing, and a neocortex region in the brain.Mammals are divided into three main...
s containing four
ordersIn scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...
: the Dermoptera or colugos, the Scandentia or treeshrews, the extinct
PlesiadapiformesPlesiadapiformes is an extinct order of mammals. It is either closely related to the primates or a precursor to them. Many are too derived to be ancestral to primates. The earliest ones have teeth that are strongly indicative that they share a common ancestor with primates...
, and the
PrimateA primate is a member of the biological order Primates , the group that contains lemurs, lorisids, galagos, tarsiers, monkeys, and apes, with the last category including great apes. With the exception of humans, who inhabit every continent on Earth, most primates live in tropical or subtropical...
s.
The term "Euarchonta" (meaning "true ancestors") first appeared in the general scientific literature in 1999, when molecular evidence suggested that the
morphologyIn biology morphology is the form, structure and configuration of an organism.This includes aspects of the outward appearance as well as the form and structure of the internal parts like bones and organs...
-based
ArchontaThe Archonta are a group of mammals considered a superorder in some classifications.The Archonta consist of the following orders :*Primates*Plesiadapiformes *Scandentia *Dermoptera...
be trimmed down to exclude
ChiropteraBats are flying mammals in the order Chiroptera . The forelimbs of bats are webbed and developed as wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums and colugos, glide rather than...
. Major DNA sequence analyses of predominantly nuclear sequences (Murphy et al., 2001) support the Euarchonta hypothesis, while a major study investigating mitochondrial sequences supports a different tree topology (Arnason et al., 2002).
The
Euarchonta are a superorder of
mammalMammals are a class of vertebrate animals whose females are characterized by the possession of mammary glands while both males and females are characterized by sweat glands, hair, three middle ear bones used in hearing, and a neocortex region in the brain.Mammals are divided into three main...
s containing four
ordersIn scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...
: the Dermoptera or colugos, the Scandentia or treeshrews, the extinct
PlesiadapiformesPlesiadapiformes is an extinct order of mammals. It is either closely related to the primates or a precursor to them. Many are too derived to be ancestral to primates. The earliest ones have teeth that are strongly indicative that they share a common ancestor with primates...
, and the
PrimateA primate is a member of the biological order Primates , the group that contains lemurs, lorisids, galagos, tarsiers, monkeys, and apes, with the last category including great apes. With the exception of humans, who inhabit every continent on Earth, most primates live in tropical or subtropical...
s.
The term "Euarchonta" (meaning "true ancestors") first appeared in the general scientific literature in 1999, when molecular evidence suggested that the
morphologyIn biology morphology is the form, structure and configuration of an organism.This includes aspects of the outward appearance as well as the form and structure of the internal parts like bones and organs...
-based
ArchontaThe Archonta are a group of mammals considered a superorder in some classifications.The Archonta consist of the following orders :*Primates*Plesiadapiformes *Scandentia *Dermoptera...
be trimmed down to exclude
ChiropteraBats are flying mammals in the order Chiroptera . The forelimbs of bats are webbed and developed as wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums and colugos, glide rather than...
. Major DNA sequence analyses of predominantly nuclear sequences (Murphy et al., 2001) support the Euarchonta hypothesis, while a major study investigating mitochondrial sequences supports a different tree topology (Arnason et al., 2002). A study investigating
retrotransposonRetrotransposons are genetic elements that can amplify themselves in a genome and are ubiquitous components of the DNA of many eukaryotic organisms. They are a subclass of transposon. They are particularly abundant in plants, where they are often a principal component of nuclear DNA...
presence/absence dataRetrotransposon markers are retrotransposons that are used as cladistic markers.The analysis of SINEs – Short INterspersed Elements – LINEs – Long INterspersed Elements – or truncated LTRs – Long Terminal Repeats – as molecular cladistic markers represents a particularly interesting complement to...
has claimed strong support for Euarchonta (Kriegs et al., 2007). Some interpretations of the molecular data link Primates and Dermoptera in a
cladeA clade is a term used in modern alpha taxonomy, the scientific classification of living and fossil organisms, to describe a monophyletic group, defined as a group consisting of a single common ancestor and all its descendants.[The term "monophyletic group" is used in this article...]
known as Primatomorpha, which is the sister of Scandentia. In some the Dermoptera are a member of the primates rather than a sister. Other interpretations link the Dermoptera and Scandentia together in a group called Sundatheria as the sister group of the primates. Together, the three are known as Euarchonta, the "True Founders".
Euarchonta and
GliresGlires is a clade consisting of rodents and lagomorphs . This hypothesis that these form a monophyletic group has been long debated based on morphological evidence, although recent morphological studies strongly support monophyly of Glires...
together form the
EuarchontogliresThe Euarchontoglires is a clade of rank cohort or magnorder , within the Placentalia or Eutheria infraclass of mammals...
, one of the four
EutheriaEutheria are a group of mammals consisting of placental mammals plus all extinct mammals that are more closely related to living placentals than to living marsupials . They are distinguished from non-eutherians by various features of the feet, ankles, jaws and teeth...
n clades.