| Platanistidae Temporal range: Early Miocene to Recent [1] | |
|---|---|
) | |
| South Asian river dolphin (Platanista gangetica) | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Infraorder: | Cetacea |
| Superfamily: | Platanistoidea |
| Family: | Platanistidae J. E. Gray, 1846 |
| Genera | |
| |
Platanistidae is a family of river dolphins containing the extant South Asian river dolphin but also extinct relatives from marine deposits in the Neogene.[2]
The Amazon river dolphin, Yangtze river dolphin, and franciscana were once thought to belong to Platanistidae (e.g. Simpson, 1945), but cladistic and DNA studies beginning in the 1990s showed that the former three taxa are more closely related to Delphinoidea than to the South Asian river dolphin.[3][4] The extinct odontocete families Allodelphinidae and Squalodelphinidae are closely related to Platanistidae.[5] Fossils from this clade have been found in deposits in North and South America, Europe, and Central Asia.[6]
References
- ^ "†Zarhachis flagellator Cope 1868 (toothed whale)". Fossilworks.org.
- ^ L. G. Barnes. 2006. A phylogenetic analysis of the superfamily Platanistoidea (Mammalia, Cetacea, Odontoceti). Beitrage zur Palaontologie 30:25-42
- ^ G. G. Simpson. 1945. The principles of classification and a classification of mammals. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 85:1-350.
- ^ Hrbek T, da Silva VMF, Dutra N, Gravena W, Martin AR, Farias IP (2014) A New Species of River Dolphin from Brazil or: How Little Do We Know Our Biodiversity. PLoS ONE 9(1): e83623. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0083623
- ^ Boersma, A.; Pyenson, N. D. (2016). "Arktocara yakataga, a new fossil odontocete (Mammalia, Cetacea) from the Oligocene of Alaska and the antiquity of Platanistoidea". Peer J. 4: e2321. doi:10.7717/peerj.2321. PMC 4991871. PMID 27602287.
- ^ "Family Platanistidae Gray 1846". PBDB.