Ailurinae

Ailurinae Temporal range: Middle Miocene–Recent PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Red panda (Ailurus fulgens)
Skull of Pristinailurus bristoli
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Carnivora
Family:	Ailuridae
Subfamily:	Ailurinae Gray, 1843
Tribes and genera
†Magerictis Ginsburg et al., 1997 Ailurini J. E. Gray, 1843 Ailurus F. Cuvier, 1825 †Pristinailurini Wallace & Lyon, 2022 †Pristinailurus Wallace & Wang, 2004 †Parailurus Schlosser, 1899

Ailurinae is a subfamily of Ailuridae (of which this is the only extant subfamily out of three). While it is represented by the extant genus Ailurus, there were a handful of genera whose fossils have been found across the Holarctic region. These include the Middle Miocene Magerictis of Spain, the Early Pliocene Pristinailurus of the United States of America and their sister taxon Parailurus of Eurasia and North America in the Pliocene.^[1] Unlike Ailurus which is a specialized arboreal bamboo forager, the extinct ailurine species were more generalized and spent their time foraging on the ground.

References

This page was last edited on 18 April 2022, at 05:25