Phylogenetic position of the order Lagomorpha (rabbits, hares and allies)

• Published in: Nature (London) Vol. 379; no. 6563; pp. 333 - 335
• Main Authors: Graur, Dan, Duret, Laurent, Gouy, Manolo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing 25-01-1996; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: Animals; Biological and medical sciences; Classification; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Genetics; Lagomorpha; Life Sciences; Mammalia; Other; Phylogeny; Primates - classification; Proteins; Rabbits; Rabbits - classification; Rodentia - classification; Rodents; Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; Shrews - classification; Vertebrates: general zoology, morphology, phylogeny, systematics, cytogenetics, geographical distribution; Vertebrata; Mammalia; Phylogeny; Lagomorpha; Taxonomy; Phylogenetic tree
• ISSN: 0028-0836; 1476-4687
• DOI: 10.1038/379333a0

Ever since they have been classified as ruminants in the Old Testament (Leviticus 11:6, Deuteronomy 14:7) and equated with hyraxes in the vulgate Latin translation, rabbits and their relatives (order Lagomorpha) have frequently experienced radical changes in taxonomic rank. By using 91 orthologous protein sequences, we have attempted to answer the classical question "What, if anything, is a rabbit?". Here we show that Lagomorpha is significantly more closely related to Primates and Scandentia (tree shrews) than it is to rodents. This newly determined phylogenetic position invalidates the superordinal taxon Glires (Lagomorpha + Rodentia), and indicates that the morphological 'synapomorphies' previously used to cluster rodents and lagomorphs into Glires, may actually represent symplesiomorphies or homoplasies that are of no phylogenetic value. This raises the possibility that the ancestral eutherian morphotype may have possessed many rodent-like morphological characters.