Viverridae

Viverridae is a family of small to medium-sized, feliform mammals. The viverrids (vaɪˈvɛrɪdz) comprise 33 species placed in 14 genera. This family was named and first described by John Edward Gray in 1821. Viverrids occur all over Africa, southern Europe, and South and Southeast Asia, across the Wallace Line. The name comes from the Latin word viverra, meaning "ferret", but ferrets are in a different family, the Mustelidae. Viverrids have four or five toes on each foot and half-retractile claws. They have six incisors in each jaw and molars with two tubercular grinders behind in the upper jaw, and one in the lower jaw. The tongue is rough with sharp prickles. A pouch or gland occurs beneath the anus, but there is no cecum. Viverrids are the most primitive of all the families of feliform Carnivora and clearly less specialized than the Felidae. In external characteristics, they are distinguished from the Felidae by the longer muzzle and tuft of facial vibrissae between the lower jaw bones, and by the shorter limbs and the five-toed hind foot with the first digit present. The skull differs by the position of the postpalatine foramina on the maxilla, almost always well in advance of the maxillopalatine suture, and usually about the level of the second premolar; and by the distinct external division of the auditory bulla into its two elements either by a definite groove or, when rarely this is obliterated, by the depression of the tympanic bone in front of the swollen entotympanic. The typical dental formula is: , but the number may be reduced, although never to the same extent as in the Felidae. Their flesh-shearing carnassial teeth are relatively undeveloped compared to those of other feliform carnivorans. Most viverrid species have a penis bone (a baculum). In 1821, Gray defined this family as consisting of the genera Viverra, Genetta, Herpestes, and Suricata.