Aardvark origins
Lehmann 2009 reported,
“The systematics of the order Tubulidentata [= aardvarks like Orycteropus, Figs 1, 2 4] is poorly known. Its phylogeny has never been thoroughly analysed and only a single review has ever been performed, which was over 30 years ago.”
Lehmann sought to understand phylogeny only within the aardvark clade.
Outgroups were cherry-picked. See below.
Backstory according to Lehmann:
“This eutherian mammal was then thought to be congeneric with the South American anteaters. Further studies… eventually suggested that the aardvark represented a separate genus, and led to its current scientific name: Orycteropus afer. However, these authors considered that the aardvark was still in close relationship with the South American mammals. Thus, they classified it as a member of the now obsolete order ‘Edentata’ Cuvier, 1798.”
A three-part study by author Sonntag
“suggested that the aardvark belongs to an order of its own (Tubulidentata Huxley, 1872), and that it is not related to the Xenarthra. This point of view is now wholly accepted.”
Lehamn did not report a closest known outgroup
from a wide gamut of fossil and extant taxa taxon for aardvarks. However, Lehmann did cherry-pick the sengi Rhynchocyon (Figs 1–3) in his 12-taxon analysis as an aardvark outgroup. There is a resemblance. Rhynchocyon was not otherwise mentioned in the text.
Other cherry-picked outgroup taxa included
Procavia, the only extant chalicothere, the rock hyrax, and Chrysochloris, the golden mole. Leptorycteropus was also selected, but it is a scrappy taxon with few skull parts and a complete pelvis. It will not be tested in the LRT.
By contrast,
the LRT picks all outgroup taxa for every included taxon from a list of 2324 specimens.
Lehmann concluded,
“the discussion of the origin of the order Tubulidentata should be pursued. Comparison of the known Tubulidentata with Paleogene mammals like the Condylarthra, the Ptolemaiida, as well as with the fossil Paenungulata, Macroscelidae, and Tenrecidae, with respect to the Afrotheria clade, should be performed.”
That’s why the large reptile tree (LRT, 2324 taxa) was created: to recover the origin of all included taxa and clades, including aardvarks.
Figure 1. Above: The sengi, Rhynchocyon. Below: The aardvark, Orycteropus.
” data-medium-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/rhynchocyon2orycteropus.invivo588.jpg?w=237″ data-large-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/rhynchocyon2orycteropus.invivo588.jpg?w=584″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button” class=”size-full wp-image-88667″ src=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/rhynchocyon2orycteropus.invivo588.jpg” alt=”Figure 1. Above: The sengi, Rhynchocyon. Below: The aardvark, Orycteropus. ” width=”584″ height=”739″ />
Figure 1. Above: The sengi, Rhynchocyon. Below: The larger aardvark, Orycteropus.
Here in the LRT
the aardvark, Orycteropus (Figs 1, 2, 4) nests between the pangolin, Manis and the armadillo, Dasypus.
These taxa were not mentioned in Lehmann 2009.
Figure 2. Above: Skeleton of the sengi, Rhynchoyon. Below: Skeleton of the aardvark, Orycteropus.
” data-medium-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/rhynchocyon-orycteropus-skeletons588.jpg?w=283″ data-large-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/rhynchocyon-orycteropus-skeletons588.jpg?w=584″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button” class=”size-full wp-image-88668″ src=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/rhynchocyon-orycteropus-skeletons588.jpg” alt=”Figure 2. Above: Skeleton of the sengi, Rhynchoyon. Below: Skeleton of the aardvark, Orycteropus. ” width=”584″ height=”620″ />
Figure 2. Above: Skeleton of the sengi, Rhynchoyon. Below: Skeleton of the aardvark, Orycteropus. Not to scale.
Rhynchocyon nests in the LRT in the nearby clade:
Anagalia, between Talpa, the mole and Tenrec, the tenrec among extant taxa. Indohyus, the small walking odontocete-ancestor, nested closer to Rhynchocyon. Both share artiodactyl-like ankles and digitigrade limbs… which is part of the source of the confusion in the traditional origin of whales hypothesis.
Figure 2. Rhynchocyon skull with select bones DGS colored.
” data-medium-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/rhynchocyon-chrysopygus588.jpg?w=300″ data-large-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/rhynchocyon-chrysopygus588.jpg?w=584″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button” class=”size-full wp-image-88672″ src=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/rhynchocyon-chrysopygus588.jpg” alt=”Figure 2. Rhynchocyon skull with select bones DGS colored. ” width=”584″ height=”321″ />
Figure 3. Rhynchocyon skull with select bones DGS colored.
The resemblance between
sengis and aardvarks (Fig 1–4) is striking and informative, but other taxa (listed above) are closer.
Figure x. Subset of the LRT focusing of aardvark origins.
” data-medium-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/aardvark_cladogram588.jpg?w=155″ data-large-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/aardvark_cladogram588.jpg?w=530″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button” class=”size-full wp-image-88685″ src=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/aardvark_cladogram588.jpg” alt=”Figure x. Subset of the LRT focusing of aardvark origins. ” width=”584″ height=”1128″ />
Figure x. Subset of the LRT focusing of aardvark origins.
Teeth
Rhynchocyon (Fig 3) has a complete set of incisors, canines, premolars and molars. Orycteropus (Fig 4) has only molars, and those are flat (= without cusps).
Figure 4. The skulls from two species of aardvark, Orycteropus. Select bones DGS colored.
” data-medium-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/aardvark-skull588.jpg?w=176″ data-large-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/aardvark-skull588.jpg?w=584″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button” class=”size-full wp-image-88673″ src=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/aardvark-skull588.jpg” alt=”Figure 4. The skulls from two species of aardvark, Orycteropus. Select bones DGS colored.” width=”584″ height=”997″ />
Figure 4. The skulls from two species of aardvark, Orycteropus. Select bones DGS colored.
To further complicate matters
Early Eocene Leptictidium (Fig 5) has a toothless diastema, flattened upper molars and a gracile zygomatic arch, traits shared by aardvarks by convergence, retained from Rhynchocyon by homology.
Figure 2. Elements of Leptictidium from Storch and Lister 1985. Compare to Orycteropus in figure 3.
” data-medium-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/leptictidium_auderiense588.jpg?w=276″ data-large-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/leptictidium_auderiense588.jpg?w=584″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button” class=”size-full wp-image-88680″ src=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/leptictidium_auderiense588.jpg” alt=”Figure 2. Elements of Leptictidium from Storch and Lister 1985. Compare to Orycteropus in figure 3.” width=”584″ height=”634″ />
Figure 5. Elements of Leptictidium from Storch and Lister 1985. Compare to Orycteropus in figure 3.
Plesiorctyeropus
I applied a Dasypus (armadillo) Bauplan to what little is known of Plesiorycteropus (Fig 6, Quaternary, Madagascar) and found it to be reasonable fit.
Figure 6. Plesiorycteropus restored with Dasypus missing parts.
” data-medium-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/plesiorycteropus2-588.gif?w=195″ data-large-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/plesiorycteropus2-588.gif?w=584″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button” class=”size-full wp-image-88726″ src=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/plesiorycteropus2-588.gif” alt=”Figure 6. Plesiorycteropus restored with Dasypus missing parts. ” width=”584″ height=”897″ />
Figure 6. Plesiorycteropus restored with Dasypus missing parts. An earlier attempt at restoration was presented based on a combination of specimens. This restoration is simpler, based on only one specimen.
Figure 7. Skull of the armadillo Dasypus from Digimorph.org, used with permission. and select bones colorized.
” data-medium-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/dasypus_skull588.gif?w=300″ data-large-file=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/dasypus_skull588.gif?w=584″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button” class=”size-full wp-image-88728″ src=”https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/dasypus_skull588.gif” alt=”Figure 4. Skull of the armadillo Dasypus from Digimorph.org, used with permission. and select bones colorized. ” width=”584″ height=”557″ />
Figure 7. Skull of the armadillo Dasypus from Digimorph.org, used with permission. and select bones colorized.
This hypothesis of interrelationships
was recovered after a recent reshuffling of basal placental taxa following a few scoring changes to distantly related taxa. Aardvark interrelationships have not changed much other than removal of the pangolin-aardvark-armadillo clade apart from sloths and glyptodonts (Xenarthra). This is a fragile change, prone to change back when distant taxa are rescored.
References
Lehmann T 2009. Phylogeny and systematics of the Orycteropodidae (Mammalia, Tubulidentata). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009, 155, 649–702.
wiki/Aardvark
wiki/Orycteropus
wiki/Elephant_shrew
wiki/Rhynchocyon
Source: https://pterosaurheresies.wordpress.com/2024/09/10/aardvark-origins/
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