Civettictis

Civettictis is a genus of viverrid that contains the extant African civet and a recently described extinct relative from the Plio-Pleistocene of South Africa known as Civettictis braini.

Evolution

A 2006 phylogenetic study showed that the African civet is closely related to the genus Viverra. It was estimated that the Civettictis-''Viverra clade diverged from Viverricula around 16.2 Mya; the African civet split from Viverra'' 12.3 Mya. The authors suggested that the subfamily Viverrinae should be bifurcated into Genettinae and Viverrinae. The following cladogram is based on this study.