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273ancestor. Their origins lie at least as far back as the late Cretaceous, though they did not radiate much until theCenozoic.[1] Creodonts were the dominant carnivorous mammals from 55 to 35 million years ago, peaking in diversityand prevalence during the Eocene.[1] By the mid Oligocene, Creodonts supplanted both the Mesonychids, and giantflightless predatory birds entirely in North America, Eurasia and Africa, and in turn, competed with their own relatives,the Carnivorans. The last genus, Dissopsalis, went extinct about 8 million years ago."Die Creodonten scheiden also ebenfalls als Vorfahren der Carnivoren (und damitauch der Miacidae und Canidae) aus.Werfen wir einen Blick auf die Cimolesta (Gattung Cimolestes, from Greek literally"White Clay Thieves" 497 , andere Quellen: "Bug Thief" und "Insect Thief"):"The Cimolesta are a group of poorly known late Cretacous and early Cenozoic mammals. Although Rose (2006),Kielan-Jaworowska et al. (2004), and McKenna and Bell (1997) included the type family Cimolestidae within the Ferae(carnivorous placental mammals), with Creodonts and Carnivora, Wible et al., 2007 and 2009 found it to fall outsidethe crown group Placentalia, related to the Asioryctitheria, such as are represented by Asioryctes, above. The currenttendency also is to see the Creodonts as an artificial grouping. It is not even clear if the Cimolesta is a natural taxon, asit contains several groups such as the paraphyletic insectivorous Didelphodonta (which includes Cimolestes and theCimolestidae) which as mentioned it seems now are not even placentals and so belong further stemward of theeutherian tree, the semi-aquatic Pantolesta, the medium to large herbivorous Pantodonta, and the enigmaticherbivorous Tillodontia and Taeniodonta (Rose 2006), along with a few other groups.” 498Figure 3 aus Wible et al. 2007, p. 1005 499 (redrawn by Roland Slowik 2013) - Cimolestes ist die 9. Gattung von oben (hier in blau):sie liegt außerhalb der Plazentalia (noch einmal bestätigt von Wible et al. 2009 500 ). Die Autoren erklären ihre Abb. wie folgt:"Relationships of Maelestes to other eutherians. Simplified eutherian part of the strict consensus of three most parsimonious trees(2,296 steps; see Supplementary Information). Broken line, K/T boundary at 65 million years. Filled circle taxa, Laurasian (northerncontinents); open circle taxa, Gondwanan (southern continents. Circles and circles with thicker black [now brown] lines indicatetemporal occurrence of studied specimens. The grey box delimits Placentalia, the oldest member of which is the early PalaecoceneMimotona. Placentalia originates at or near the K/T boundary in Laurasia. Deccanolestes from the latest Cretaceous of India isnested among Asian clades and is more parsimoniously interpreted as an independent southern migration. The animal SilhouetteSpotlights Maelestes.”497 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimolesta (2. 4. 2013), andere Quellen: http://www.tutorgigpedia.com/Ferae_es.html und http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/mesozoicmammals/p/cimolestes.htm498 http://palaeos.com/vertebrates/archaic_mammals/cimolesta.html (Zugriff 27. 3. 2013)499 Wible, J. R.; G. W. Rougier, G. W. ; M. J. Novacek, M.J. and R. J. Asher (2007): Cretaceous eutherians and Laurasian origin for placental mammalsnear the K/T boundary. Nature 447: 1003-1006.500 Wible, J. R.; G. W. Rougier, G. W. ; M. J. Novacek, M.J. and R. J. Asher (2009): The eutherian mammal Maelestes gobiensis from the Late Cretaceousof Mongolia and the phylogeny of Cretaceous eutheria. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 327: 1- 123. (Die Arbeit enthält zwar aucheinige Korrekturen, aber Cimolestes bleibt deutlich außerhalb der Plazentalia.)