Orycteropodidae [SEP] parent taxon
Orycteropodidae
Orycteropodidae is a family of afrotherian mammals. Although there are many fossil species, the only species surviving today is the aardvark, "Orycteropus afer". Orycteropodidae is recognized as the only family within the order Tubulidentata, so the two are effectively synonyms.
Aardvarks had originally been categorized as relatives of American anteaters in the order Edentata. But their unique type of teeth and other morphological characteristics had made it clear that aardvarks are not closely related to any other living mammals. Since the end of the 19th century,
Taxon in disguise
In bacteriology, a taxon in disguise is a species, genus or higher unit of biological classification whose evolutionary history reveals has evolved from another unit of similar or lower rank, making the parent unit paraphyletic. This happens when rapid evolution makes a new species appear radically different from the ancestral group, so that it is not (initially) recognised as belonging to the parent phylogenetic group, leaving the latter an evolutionary grade.
While the term is from bacteriology, parallel examples are found throughout the tree of