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New research digs into how changes in Earth\u2019s climates shaped a group of animals called carnivorans.<\/p>\n
The ancestors of our furry cats and dogs once looked similar to today\u2019s modern mongoose, a mammal with a long body and small, round ears. In fact, all members of the order Carnivora, which includes a variety of mammalian species, such as bears, wolves, and even seals, evolved from these \u201cmongoose-like\u201d creatures.<\/p>\n
How did such a variety of body shapes emerge from one body type? The new research led by the University of Washington suggests that two different climate transitions millions of years ago fueled this change.<\/p>\n
The team, led by Chris Law, a UW principal research scientist in biology, studied the skeletal shapes of more than 850 carnivoran specimens held at 17 different natural history museums. The specimens include almost 200 different species of carnivorans: 118 that currently exist and 81 that are extinct.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that the Eocene-Oligocene Transition, which took place around 34 million years ago, led to changes in body shape between different carnivoran families\u2014such as between cats and dogs. Then the Mid-Miocene Climate Transition, which took place around 15 to 13 million years ago, led to changes within families\u2014such as changes between canid species.<\/p>\n
The team published these findings in Proceedings of the Royal Society B<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here, Law, who is also an affiliate curator at the UW Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, explains more about these results and what they mean for carnivorans today:<\/p>\n Additional coauthors are from the National Research Center on Human Evolution the University of California, Berkeley.<\/p>\n This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, a University of Texas early career provost fellowship, an Arthur James Boucot research grant through the Paleontological Society, a Vertebrate Paleontology Collections Study grant through the Burke Museum, and the European Research Council within the European Union\u2019s Horizon Europe.<\/p>\n