Lagomorph
| Lagomorphs Temporal range: Late Paleocene–Holocene |
|
|---|---|
 |
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| European rabbit | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Clade: | Exafroplacentalia |
| Magnorder: | Boreoeutheria |
| Superorder: | Euarchontoglires |
| (unranked): | Glires |
| Order: |
Lagomorpha Brandt, 1855 |
| Families | |
 |
|
| Range of Lagomorpha | |
Leporidae
Ochotonidae
Prolagidae †
The lagomorphs are the members of the taxonomic order Lagomorpha, of which there are two living families: the Leporidae (hares and rabbits) and the Ochotonidae (pikas). The name of the order is derived from the Ancient Greek lagos (λαγώς, "hare") +morphē (μορφή, "form"). There are about eighty-seven species of lagomorph, including about twenty-nine species of pika, twenty-eight species of rabbit and cottontail, and thirty species of hare.
Lagomorphs share a common ancestor with rodents, together forming the clade Glires (Latin: “dormice”). Like the ancestors of most modern mammalian groups, this most recent common ancestor lived after the last great extinction event, the one 66 million years ago that drove all dinosaurs extinct except for birds. Early lagomorphs arose perhaps in Asia and spread across the northern hemisphere. Later, rodents came to dominate more environmental niches, and lagomorphs seem to have been in decline.
Other names used for this order, now considered synonymous, include: Duplicidentata - Illiger, 1811; Leporida - Averianov, 1999; Neolagomorpha - Averianov, 1999; Ochotonida - Averianov, 1999; and Palarodentia - Haeckel, 1895.
The extinct family Prolagidae is represented by a single species, the Sardinian pika Prolagus sardus, fossils of which are known from Sardinia, Corsica, and nearby small islands. It may have survived until about 1774.
The evolutionary history of the lagomorphs is still not well understood. Until recently, it was generally agreed that Eurymylus, which lived in eastern Asia and dates back to the late Paleocene or early Eocene, was an ancestor of the lagomorphs. More recent examination of the fossil evidence suggests that the lagomorphs may have instead descended from Anagaloidea, also known as "mimotonids", while Eurymylus was more closely related to rodents (although not a direct ancestor). The leporids first appeared in the late Eocene and rapidly spread throughout the Northern Hemisphere; they show a trend towards increasingly long hind limbs as the modern leaping gait developed. The pikas appeared somewhat later in the Oligocene of eastern Asia.
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