“W” is for Wanolestes

“W” is for Wanolestes

“W” was a letter for which I could find no Paleocene mammals. So, once again I put out the APB on Twitter. Thanks for Dan Spivak (@danman222) on Twitter for pointing out Wanolestes.

Nice! Now if it had a sister taxon, could we call it Obiwanolestes? RT @danman222: @paleololigo Wanolestes

— Penny Higgins (@paleololigo) March 12, 2013

Wanolestes is classified in the Order Soricomorpha, which includes the modern shrews and moles. It turns out the Soricomorpha is paraphyletic, meaning that while all it’s members are related by a common ancestor, some descendents of that common ancestor are omitted from the group.. This is one of the problems with modern taxonomy.

The Soricomorpha is grouped because they’re all relatively small, bug-eating mammals.

I wonder what Obiwanolestes would eat?

Part of the Blogging from A to Z challenge.

For 4-26-13