Musteloidea

Musteloidea is a superfamily of carnivoran mammals united by shared characters of the skull and teeth. Musteloids share a common ancestor with the pinnipeds, the group which includes seals. The Musteloidea consists of the families Ailuridae (red pandas), Mustelidae (mustelids: weasels, otters, martens, and badgers), Procyonidae (procyonids: raccoons, coatis, kinkajous, olingos, olinguitos, ringtails and cacomistles), and Mephitidae (skunks and stink badgers). In North America, ursoids and musteloids first appear in the Chadronian (late Eocene). In Europe, ursoids and musteloids first appear in the early Oligocene immediately following the Grande Coupure. The cladogram is based on molecular phylogeny of six genes in Flynn (2005), with the musteloids updated following the multigene analysis of Law et al. (2018).