Mammal orders

Carnivora ( ) is an order of placental mammals specialised primarily in eating flesh, whose members are formally referred to as carnivorans. The order Carnivora is the sixth largest order of mammals, comprising at least 279 species. Carnivorans are found on every major landmass and in a variety of habitats, ranging from the cold polar regions of Earth to the hyper-arid region of the Sahara Desert and the open seas. Carnivorans exhibit a wide array of body plans, varying greatly in size and shape.

thumb|The white rhinoceros is the largest living perissodactyl

thumb|225px|Fossil occurrences of leporids and ochotonids and global environmental change (climate change, C3/C4 plants distribution)

The Sirenia ( ), commonly referred to as sea cows or sirenians, are an order of fully aquatic, herbivorous mammals that inhabit swamps, rivers, estuaries, marine wetlands, and coastal marine waters. The extant Sirenia comprise two distinct families: Dugongidae (the dugong and the now extinct Steller's sea cow) and Trichechidae (manatees, namely the Amazonian manatee, West Indian manatee, and West African manatee) with a total of three species.

Proboscidea (; , ) is a taxonomic order of Afrotheria paenungulate mammals described by J. Illiger in 1811. It encompasses the elephants (family Elephantidae) and their extinct relatives. Three living species of elephant are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant.

REDIRECT Hyrax

Diprotodontia () is the largest extant order of marsupials, with about 155 species, including the kangaroos, wallabies, possums, koala, wombats, and many others. Extinct diprotodonts include the hippopotamus-sized Diprotodon, and Thylacoleo, the so-called "marsupial lion".

Dasyuromorphia () is an order comprising most of the Australian carnivorous marsupials. The order contains four families: Myrmecobiidae, with just a single living species, the numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus), Thylacinidae, with one recently extinct species, the thylacine (Thylacinus cynocephalus) and several fossil species, Dasyuridae, with 73 extant species, including quolls, dunnarts, and the Tasmanian devil, and the extinct fossil family Malleodectidae with one genus.

The clade Afrosoricida (; a Latin-Greek compound name which means "looking like African shrews") contains the golden moles of Southern Africa, the otter shrews of equatorial Africa, and the tenrecs of Madagascar. These three groups of small mammals were for most of the 19th and 20th centuries regarded as a part of the Insectivora or Lipotyphla, but both of those groups, as traditionally used, are polyphyletic.

Pilosa is a order of xenarthran placental mammals, native to the Americas. They include anteaters and sloths (which include the extinct ground sloths). The name comes from the Latin word for "hairy".

The order Peramelemorphia includes the bandicoots and bilbies. All members of the order are endemic to Australia-New Guinea and most have the characteristic bandicoot shape: a plump, arch-backed body with a long, delicately tapering snout, very large upright ears, relatively long, thin legs, and a thin tail. Their size varies from about 140 grams up to 4 kilograms, but most species are about one kilogram.

Cingulata, part of the superorder Xenarthra, is an order of armored New World placental mammals. The armadillos, whose species are split between the families Dasypodidae and Chlamyphoridae, are the only surviving members of the order. Two groups of cingulates much larger than extant armadillos (maximum body mass of 45 kg (100 lb) in the case of the giant armadillo) existed until recently: pampatheriids, which reached weights of up to 200 kg (440 lb) and chlamyphorid glyptodonts, which attained masses of 2,000 kg (4,400 lb) or more.

Eulipotyphla (, from eu- "true" + Lipotyphla "lacking blind gut"; sometimes called true insectivores) is an order of mammals comprising the families Erinaceidae (hedgehogs and gymnures), Solenodontidae (solenodons), Talpidae (moles, shrew-like moles and desmans), and Soricidae (true shrews).

REDIRECT Artiodactyla

Multituberculata (commonly known as multituberculates, named for the multiple tubercles of their teeth) is an extinct order of rodent-like mammals with a fossil record spanning over 130 million years. They first appeared in the Middle Jurassic, and reached a peak diversity during the Late Cretaceous and Paleocene. They declined from the mid-Paleocene onwards, finally going extinct in the late Eocene. They are the most diverse order of Mesozoic mammals with more than 200 species known, ranging from mouse-sized to beaver-sized. These species occupied a diversity of ecological niches, ranging fro

REDIRECT Elephant shrew

Microbiotheria is an australidelphian marsupial order that encompasses two families, Microbiotheriidae and Woodburnodontidae, and is represented by only one extant species, the monito del monte, and a number of extinct species known from fossils in South America, Western Antarctica, and northeastern Australia.

Plesiadapiformes ("Adapid-like" or "near Adapiformes") is an extinct basal pan-primates group, as sister to the rest of the pan-primates. The pan-primates together with the Dermoptera form the Primatomorpha. Purgatorius may not be a primate as an extinct sister to the rest of the Dermoptera or a separate, more basal stem pan-primate branch. Even with Purgatorius removed, the crown primates may even have emerged in this group. left|thumb|The plesiadapiform Plesiadapis|Plesiadapis cookei (right), compared to [[Notharctus tenebrosus (left), an early crown primate. Both come from Eocene Wyoming, t

Desmostylia (from Ancient Greek δεσμά (desmá), meaning "bundle", and στῦλος (stûlos), meaning "pillar") is an extinct order of aquatic mammals native to the North Pacific from the early Oligocene (Rupelian) to the late Miocene (Tortonian) (). Desmostylians are the only known extinct order of marine mammals. Their taxonomic placement within Placentalia is subject to considerable debate.

REDIRECT Opossum

Paucituberculata is an order of South American marsupials. Although currently represented only by the seven living species of shrew opossums, this order was formerly much more diverse, with more than 60 extinct species named from the fossil record, particularly from the late Oligocene to early Miocene epochs. The earliest paucituberculatans date to the late Paleocene (Itaboraian South American land mammal age). The group went through a pronounced decline in the middle Miocene epoch, which resulted in the extinction of all families of this order except for the living shrew opossums (Caenolestid

Notoungulata is an extinct order of ungulates that inhabited South America from the early Paleocene to the end of the Pleistocene, living from approximately 61 million to 11,000 years ago. Notoungulates were morphologically diverse, with forms resembling animals as disparate as rabbits and rhinoceroses. Notoungulata are the largest group of South American native ungulates, with over 150 genera in 14 families having been described, divided into two major subgroupings, Typotheria and Toxodontia. Notoungulates first diversified during the Eocene. Their diversity declined from the late Neogene onw

REDIRECT Notoryctidae

Dinocerata, from Ancient Greek (), "terrible", and (), "horn", or Uintatheria, is an extinct order of large herbivorous hoofed mammals with horns and protuberant canine teeth, known from the Paleocene and Eocene of Asia and North America. With body masses ranging up to they represent some of the earliest known large mammals.

Astrapotheria is an extinct order of South American and Antarctic hoofed mammals that existed from the late Paleocene to the Middle Miocene, . Astrapotheres were large, rhinoceros-like animals and have been called one of the most bizarre orders of mammals with an enigmatic evolutionary history.

Xenungulata ("strange ungulates") is an order of extinct and primitive South American hoofed mammals that lived from the Late Paleocene to Early Eocene (Itaboraian to Casamayoran in the SALMA classification). Fossils of the order are known from deposits in Brazil, Argentina, Peru, and Colombia. The best known member of this enigmatic order is the genus Carodnia, a tapir-like and -sized animal with a gait similar to living African elephants.

Palaeanodonta ("ancient toothless animals") is an extinct order of placental mammals in the clade Pholidotamorpha. They were insectivorous (myrmecophagous), fossorial or semifossorial, and lived from the middle Paleocene to early Oligocene in North America, Europe and Asia. While the taxonomic grouping of Palaeanodonta has been debated, it is widely thought that they are a sister group to pangolins.

Eutriconodonta is an order of early mammals. Eutriconodonts existed in Asia (including pre-contact India), Africa, Europe, North and South America during the Jurassic and the Cretaceous periods. The order was named by Kermack et al. in 1973 as a replacement name for the paraphyletic Triconodonta.

Anagaloidea is a former order of extinct placental mammals that first appeared during the Paleocene epoch.

REDIRECT Arctostylopidae

Dryolestida is an extinct order of mammals, known from the Jurassic and Cretaceous. They are considered basal members of the clade Cladotheria, close to the ancestry of therian mammals. It is also believed that they developed a fully mammalian jaw and also had the three middle ear bones. Most members of the group, as with most Mesozoic mammals, are only known from fragmentary tooth and jaw remains.

REDIRECT Orycteropodidae

Ptolemaiida is a taxon of wolf-sized afrothere mammals that lived in northern and eastern Africa during the Paleogene. The oldest fossils are from the latest Eocene strata of the Jebel Qatrani Formation, near the Fayum oasis in Egypt. A tooth is known from an Oligocene-aged stratum in Angola, and Miocene specimens (of Kelba) are known from Kenya and Uganda.

Deltatheroida is an extinct group of basal metatherians that were distantly related to modern marsupials. The majority of known members of the group lived in the Cretaceous; one species, Gurbanodelta kara, is known from the late Paleocene (Gashatan) of China. Their fossils are restricted to Central Asia and North America. This order can be defined as all metatherians closer to Deltatheridium than to Marsupialia.

Pantolesta ("all robbers") is an extinct order of placental mammals that lived in North America, Asia and Europe from the early Paleocene to middle Oligocene. They are recognized as close relatives of clade Pholidotamorpha (pangolins and palaeanodonts), based on their dental and postcranial similarities, and semi-fossorial adaptations.