Afrosoricida

The order Afrosoricida (a Latin-Greek compound name which means "looking like African shrews") contains the golden moles of southern Africa and the tenrecs of Madagascar and Africa, two families of small mammals that are traditionally considered to be a part of the order Insectivora.

Some biologists use Tenrecomorpha as the name for the tenrec-golden mole clade, but prevailing evidence suggests Afrosoricida is more appropriate and Tenrecomorpha is used here as the name of the tenrec suborder.

Traditionally, these two families were grouped with the hedgehogs, shrews and moles in the Lipotyphla. However, there have always been minority opinions suggesting that Tenrecomorpha, or at least the golden moles, are not true lipotyphlans. These opinions are now supported by many genetic studies suggesting an association between Tenrecomorpha and various other African mammals in a proposed superorder known as Afrotheria; however there is no strong morphological evidence to link the Afrosoricida together with other Afrotherians. The Afrosoricida are sometimes considered part of the Afroinsectiphilia, a clade within the Afrotheria.



Kingdom : Animalia
Phylum : Chordata
Class : Mammalia
Infraclass : Eutheria
Superorder : Afrotheria
Order : AfrosoricidaStanhope, 1998