Dr. Chris J. Law

Yeah, so it's in the order carnivora.

And carnivora is split into two different main groups, the filiformes, which are like your cats.

And then the other group are the caniformes, which are your dogs, bears, pinnipeds, and the mustelids, which are the raccoons, weasels, skunks, otters, all those guys.

So basically, in the caniformes, it goes...

Dogs, bears, pinnipeds, then skunks, the red panda, raccoons, and then the mustelids, which includes that really species-rich group that includes the otters, the weasels, the wolverine, the martens, the honey badger, the European badger.

There's like over 60 species in mustelidae.

Yeah, I mean, that's why I love learning how to make phylogenetic trees.

I think it's just such a cool way to just showcase the evolutionary history of basically the tree of life.

And with the carnivorans in general, it's such a diverse group and so many different types of body plans and different sizes and shapes.

So it's really cool to be able to visualize all that and how this one species evolved

came from this group of species or how these two closely related species are from the same part of tree, but then look so very different.

So yeah, that's part of the fun parts of being an evolutionary biologist.

I pretend to be.

It comes and goes.

Oh, I mean, I wish I could do all of that.

The closest I've done is touched one.

It is honestly the softest thing, at least the sea otter, it's the softest thing I've ever felt.

I totally understood or understand why people back in the day really wanted to hunt them just because

that pelt, like you just want to rub your face on them because it's just so soft.

And I'm sure it's also pretty warm in terms of doing all the other stuff in terms of like wanting to hold their hands.