OK, a cow-orker had her daughter and ferret in at work, and another cow-orker (also owning a ferret) came by to chat.
She made the point several times about ferrets being in the “bear family.” OK, obviously not accurate, but I didn’t speak up, because I thought I’d end up looking like a jerk, and opted to mention to her privately that it’s really part of the weasel (mustelid) family.
But here’s the point: I came across a neat timeline at some point that showed carnivore evolution, sorta arranged like a tree, indicating where each of the modern families of carnivores that showed the commonality of ancestors back to that showed where the modern families of carnivores diverged all the way back to the miacids.
I didn’t bookmark it, of course, and now I don’t know what I did to find it.
I do remember that the major split was the “dog-like” carnivores (dogs, raccoons, bears, weasels), and the “cat-like” carnivores (cats, mongooses, hyenas), but I seem to recall that bears, dogs, and 'coons have a more recent common ancestor than they do with their mustelid relatives.
Anyone with some further insight??? (Not interested with the feliform side.)