Smutsia

African ground pangolin (Smutsia - "Smuts's animal") is a genus of pangolins from subfamily Smutsiinae within family Manidae. It was formerly considered a subgenus of genus Manis.^[4] Its members are the more terrestrial of the African pangolins.^[5] In past, this genus was also present in Europe.^[6]

African ground pangolin Temporal range: 9.78–0 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N Late Miocene - present^[1]
Pangolins from genus Smutsia
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Pholidota
Suborder:	Eupholidota
Superfamily:	Manoidea
Family:	Manidae
Subfamily:	Smutsiinae Gray, 1873^[3]
Genus:	Smutsia Gray, 1865^[2]
Type species
Smutsia gigantea Illiger, 1815
Species
S. gigantea (Illiger, 1815) S. temminckii (Smuts, 1832) †S. olteniensis (Terhune, 2021)
Smutsia gigantea   Smutsia temminckii
Synonyms
synonyms of subfamily: Smutsiana (Gray, 1873) Smutsiini (Gray, 1873)

Etymology

British naturalist John Edward Gray named Smutsia for South African naturalist Johannes Smuts (1808–1869),^[7][8] the first South African to write a treatise on mammals in 1832 (in which he described the species Manis temminckii).

Taxonomy

• Subfamily: Smutsiinae (Gray, 1873) (large african pangolins)
  • Genus: Smutsia (Gray, 1865) (african ground pangolin)
    • Smutsia gigantea (Illiger, 1815) (giant pangolin)
    • Smutsia temminckii (Smuts, 1832) (ground pangolin)
    • †Smutsia olteniensis (Terhune, 2021)^[9]

Phylogeny

Phylogenetic position of genus Smutsia within family Manidae^{[10][11][12][1]}

Pholidotamorpha	†Palaeanodonta    Pholidota  †Euromanis  ?  †Pholidota sp. (BC 16’08) †Eurotamanduidae  Eupholidota  †Eomanoidea  Manoidea  †Patriomanidae  ?  †Necromanis  Manidae  Maninae    ?  †Manidae sp. (DPC 3972 & DPC 4364)  Smutsiinae  Phatagininae    Smutsiinae   Smutsia  Smutsia gigantea   †Smutsia olteniensis Smutsia temminckii    sensu stricto   african clade   sensu lato   sensu stricto
(Pholidota sensu lato)

See also

• Mammal classification
• Manidae

References

1. Sean P. Heighton, Rémi Allio, Jérôme Murienne, Jordi Salmona, Hao Meng, Céline Scornavacca, Armanda D. S. Bastos, Flobert Njiokou, Darren W. Pietersen, Marie-Ka Tilak, Shu-Jin Luo, Frédéric Delsuc, Philippe Gaubert (2023.) "Pangolin genomes offer key insights and resources for the world’s most trafficked wild mammals"
2. Gray, J. E. (1865). "Revision of the genera and species of entomophagous edentata, founded on the examination of the specimens in the British Museum". Proceedings of the Zoological Society: 359–386.
3. Gray, J. E. (1873). "Hand-list of the edentate, thick-skinned and ruminant mammals in the British Museum". London, Printed by order of the Trustees: 1–176. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
4. Schlitter, D.A. (2005). "Order Pholidota". In Wilson, D.E.; Reeder, D.M (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 530–531. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494.
5. du Toit, Z.; du Plessis, M.; Dalton, D. L.; Jansen, R.; Paul Grobler, J.; Kotzé, A. (2017). "Mitochondrial genomes of African pangolins and insights into evolutionary patterns and phylogeny of the family Manidae". BMC Genomics. 18 (1): 746. doi:10.1186/s12864-017-4140-5. PMC 5609056. PMID 28934931.
6. "Two-Million-Year-Old Pangolin Fossil Found in Romania | Sci.News". 12 January 2022.
7. "S2A3 Biographical Database of Southern African Science [Johannes Smuts]". Retrieved May 28, 2018.
8. Palmer, T.S. (1904). "Index Generum Mammalium: a List of the Genera and Families of Mammals". North American Fauna. 23: 635. doi:10.3996/nafa.23.0001.
9. Terhune, C. E.; Gaudin, T.; Curran, S.; Petculescu, A. (2021). "The youngest pangolin (Mammalia, Pholidota) from Europe". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 41 (4): e1990075. doi:10.1080/02724634.2021.1990075. S2CID 245394367.
10. Gaudin, Timothy (2009). "The Phylogeny of Living and Extinct Pangolins (Mammalia, Pholidota) and Associated Taxa: A Morphology Based Analysis" (PDF). Journal of Mammalian Evolution. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer Science+Business Media. 16 (4): 235–305. doi:10.1007/s10914-009-9119-9. S2CID 1773698.
11. Kondrashov, Peter; Agadjanian, Alexandre K. (2012). "A nearly complete skeleton of Ernanodon (Mammalia, Palaeanodonta) from Mongolia: morphofunctional analysis". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 32 (5): 983–1001. doi:10.1080/02724634.2012.694319. ISSN 0272-4634. S2CID 86059673.
12. Philippe Gaubert, Agostinho Antunes, Hao Meng, Lin Miao, Stéphane Peigné, Fabienne Justy, Flobert Njiokou, Sylvain Dufour, Emmanuel Danquah, Jayanthi Alahakoon, Erik Verheyen, William T Stanley, Stephen J O’Brien, Warren E Johnson, Shu-Jin Luo (2018) "The Complete Phylogeny of Pangolins: Scaling Up Resources for the Molecular Tracing of the Most Trafficked Mammals on Earth" Journal of Heredity, Volume 109, Issue 4, Pages 347–359