Ancylopoda [SEP] parent taxon
Ancylopoda
Ancylopoda is a group of browsing, herbivorous, mammals in the Perissodactyla that show long, curved and cleft claws. Morphological evidence indicates the Ancylopoda diverged from the tapirs, rhinoceroses and horses (Euperissodactyla) after the Brontotheria, however earlier authorities such as Osborn sometimes considered the Ancylopoda to be outside Perissodactyla or, as was popular more recently, to be related to Brontotheria.
"Macrotherium", which is typically from the middle Miocene of Sansan, in Gers, France, may indicate a distinct genus. Limb-
from the 1960s showed a middle position of Ancylopoda between Hippomorpha and Ceratomorpha. Leonard Burton Radinsky saw all three major groups of odd-toed ungulates as peers, based on the extremely long and independent phylogenetic development of the three lines. In the 1980s, Jeremy J. Hooker saw a general similarity of Ancylopoda and "Ceratomorpha" based on dentition, especially in the earliest members, leading to the unification in 1984 of the two submissions in the interim order, "Tapiromorpha". At the same time he expanded the Ancylopoda to include