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GENUS Ondatra

Author:Link, 1795.
Citation:Beytrage zur Naturgeschichte, 1(2): 76.
Type Species:Castor zibethicus Linnaeus, 1766.
Comments:Ondatrini. Assigned either as sole tribal member (Hooper and Hart, 1962; Koenigswald, 1980) or with Neofiber (Chaline and Mein, 1979; Repenning et al., 1990); or placed in subtribe Ondatrina, Arvicolini (Pavlinov et al., 1995a). Based on allozymic analysis, Mezhzherin et al. (1995) recognized Ondatrini as the first group to have diverged from the basal arvicoline stock during the late Miocene. Evidence from fossil history and morphology indicates that the two genera of "muskrats" are more distantly related than their inclusion in the same tribe would connote (Carleton, 1981; Hooper and Hart, 1962; Koenigswald, 1980; R. A. Martin, 1975, 1979); analysis of long interspersed nucleotide elements, on the other hand, unites Ondatra and Neofiber as sister genera (Modi, 1996). Originated from the Pliocene form Pliopotamys minor (Eshelman, 1975; Zakrzewski, 1974); Pliocene-Pleistocene changes in dentition and size ("chronomorphs") leading to extant species are traced by R. A. Martin (1996), who reallocated Pliopotamys as junior synonym.
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Offspring:

SPECIES zibethicus

Synonyms:

    Fiber G. Cuvier, 1800
    Moschomys Billberg, 1827
    Mussacus Oken, 1816
    Neondatra Hibbard, 1937
    Pliopotamys Wilson, 1933
    Simotes Fischer, 1817

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