Ptolemaia: another century-long enigma finds a home in the LRT

Miller et al. 2015 concluded:
“Osborn’s [1908] lament that these animals were so peculiar that nothing much could be said about their “habitats or affinities” still stands.”

Miller et al. 2015 wrote:
“Among the Fayumian elements preserved at Nakwai are three specimens attributed to Ptolemaia cf. grangeri (Mammalia: Ptolemaiida). Ptolemaiids are an enigmatic order of mammals best known from Oligocene deposits in the Fayum, Egypt. Most of this material consists of isolated teeth, but all species are represented by at least some gnathic material, and the P. grangeri hypodigm includes one crushed but otherwise fairly complete skull.”

Based on the narrow skull of LRT sister taxa
(Fig. 2) the skull of Ptolemaia (Fig. 1) is not that crushed. Turns out these taxa have a fairly narrow skull morphology.

The IVPP specimen assigned to Hapalodectes
(Fig. 2) was not yet published when most Ptolemaia workers published, but Miller et al. 2015 did not mention it. In the LRT (Fig. 3) these taxa are basal to the clade that includes Anagale, the elephant shrew, Rhynchocyon, the giant elephant shrew, Andrewsarchus, tenrecs, pakicetids, archaeocetids and odontocetes. So all of these taxa might be considered anagalids, but the naming of the clade Ptolemaiidae is decades older. Zalambdalestes is a questionable traditional member of the Anagaloidea, but nests elsewhere (in Glires) in the LRT.

Osborn 1908 created the family Ptolemaiidae
for Ptolemaia lyonsi, the mandible (Fig. 1) he considered, “This problematic form…”