The basal phylogeny of Chelicerata is one of the opaquest parts of the animal Tree of Life,
defying resolution despite application of thousands of loci and millions of sites. At the …

Taxon sampling is a central aspect of phylogenetic study design, but it has received limited
attention in the context of total-evidence dating, a widely used dating approach that directly …

Pinnipeds (seals and related species) use their whiskers to explore their environment and
locate their prey. Today they live mostly in marine habitats and are adapted for a highly …

The present study deals with new material of carnivorans (Mustelidae, Mephitidae, Ailuridae,
Potamotheriinae and Viverridae) from the basal Tortonian (Late Miocene, late Astaracian) …

Living true seals (phocids) are the most widely dispersed semi-aquatic marine mammals,
and comprise geographically separate northern (phocine) and southern (monachine) …

Marine mammals are key components of aquatic ecosystems. Feeding strategies identified
in extant cetaceans, pinnipeds, sirenians, marine otters, and polar bears are associated with …

Secondary aquatic vertebrates exhibit a diversity of swimming modes that use paired limbs
and/or the tail. Various secondarily aquatic tetrapod clades, including amphibians, reptiles …

Pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, walruses, and their fossil relatives) are one of the most
successful mammalian clades to live in the oceans. Despite a well-resolved molecular …

Nimravids were the first carnivorans to evolve saberteeth, but previously portrayed as having
a narrow evolutionary trajectory of increasing degrees of sabertooth specialization. Here I …

Constraint is a fundamental concept in evolutionary theory. Morphology and ecology both
are limited by functional, historical and developmental factors to a subset of the theoretical …