Archaeomerycidae

Archaeomerycidae is a family of extinct artiodactyls within the group Tragulina, all members of the family are found in Asian deposits during the Eocene. Members of the family are generally described as some of, if not the most basal ruminants due to their limb anatomy and dentition. Similar to early artiodactyls, these small ungulates were small with long tails and more basal foot morphology. Multiple genera in the family have been described to have been under . Due to the fragmentary remains of the taxa assigned to the group, it has been suggested that the family as a whole could be paraphyletic and just represent a collection of more basal Asian ruminants.

== History and classification == The type genus, Archaeomeryx, would first be described by Matthew and Granger in 1925 based on multiple specimens from the Shara Murun Formation collected by the American Natural History Museum. Since this original publication, the taxonomic affinity of the genus and the family at larger would be questioned in later papers. Both the original authors along with Colbert would place the genus within Hypertragulidae with a paper by Scott in 1940 questioning this placement within his monography. Even with this being the case, authors would still refer the genus to Hypertragulidae even after Simpson would place the genus within its own family in 1945. A shift towards the more recent understanding of the family would start in 1980 when Archaeomeryx would be mentioned as not a member of Hypertragulidae but an early member of Leptomerycidae. This shift would continue throughout the 1980's when the genus would be placed outside of both families it had previously been placed in with a paper by Moyà-Solà in 1988 even suggesting the genus was not actually a runinant. More recent papers, such the 2002 paper by Vislobokova and Trofimov, suggest that Archaeomerycidae is one of if not the most basal group of Tragulina. This largely comes from the aspects of the dentition along with features of the limbs.