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Did modern carnivores descend from Repenomamus?
In the Luo 2007 article “Transformation and diversification in early mammal evolution”, Figure 1 shows that modern carnivores did not descend from Repenomamus. Node 3 in the figure shows that modern carnivores share a common ancestor with Repenomamus, however the Figure also shows that after this common ancestor a diversification event occurred. One of the resulting branches of this diversification was the order eutriconodonta, and Repenomamus was a genus in one of the subgroups of the eutriconodont order. Further separate diversification events lead to groups such as the multituberculates, the spalacotheroids, the stem cladotherians, and the stem boreosphenidans. Modern carnivores share a more common recent ancestor with the stem boreosphenidans than with the eutriconodonts, and the fact that the genus Repenomamus had branched off long before this common ancestor shows that modern carnivores did not descent from Repenomamus.
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