Afrosoricida

The order Afrosoricida (a Latin-Greek compound name which means 'looking like African shrews') contains the golden moles of southern Africa, the otter shrews of equatorial Africa and the tenrecs of Madagascar. These three families of small mammals have traditionally been considered to be a part of the order Insectivora, and were later included in Lipotyphla after Insectivora was abandoned, before Lipotyphla was also found to be polyphyletic. Some biologists use Tenrecomorpha as the name for the tenrec-golden mole clade, but Gary Bronner and Paulina Jenkins argue that Afrosoricida is more appropriate, despite their misgivings about the similarity between the name 'Afrosoricida' and the unrelated shrew subgenus Afrosorex. 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 indicating an association between Tenrecomorpha and various other African mammals in the superorder Afrotheria; however there is no strong morphological evidence to link the Afrosoricida together with other afrotherians. Afrosoricids are sometimes considered part of the Afroinsectiphilia, a clade within Afrotheria.