email: horovitz@ucla.edu, i_horovitz@juno.com
office: Angeles, CA 90095 621 Charles Young Dr. S., Los
lab:
research interests: Recent and fossil mammal systematics and evolution
Recent Courses
EE BIOL 115 - Mammalogy
Research Interests
Most of my research focuses on evolutionary relationships of mammals, involving both placentals and marsupials. I am concentrating on skeletal morphology and the search for phylogenetically informative characters that allow resolution of relationships among living orders and families as well numerous fossil groups. One of the fossil groups I am working on are the Asioryctitheria from the Upper Cretaceous of Mongolia, which given their basal placement in the tree of placental mammals, reveal valuable evidence about character evolution at the origin of this mammalian radiation. At lower levels in the tree of placental mammals, I have/am working on caviomorphs, talpids, South American ungulates, and Neotropical monkeys. The latter were the subject of my doctoral dissertation, which concentrated on craniodental morphology and the integration of fossils into data sets consisting of morphological and DNA sequence data. One of the spin-offs of this project was the analysis of evolutionary trends in the ecology of Neotropical monkeys.
Selected Publications
Horovitz, I., S. Ladeveze, C.Argot, T.E. Macrini, T. Martin, J. J. Hooker, C. Kurz, C. De Muizon, and M. R. Sanchez-Villagra . 2008. The anatomy of Herpetotherium cf. fugax COPE, 1873, a metatherian from the Oligocene of North America Palaeontographica Abteilung A In press: .
Asher, R.J., I. Horovitz, T. Martin, and M.R. Sanchez-Villagra. 2007. Neither a rodent nor a platypus: A reexamination of Necrolestes patagonensis Ameghino American Museum Novitates 3546: 1-40 .
Sanchez-Villagra, M., S. Ladeveze, I. Horovitz, C. Argot, J. J. Hooker, T. E. Macrini, T. Martin, S. Moore-Fay, C. de Muizon, T. Schmelzle and R. J. Asher. 2007. Exceptionally preserved North American Paleogene metatherians -adaptations and discovery of a major gap in the opossum fossil record Biology Letters 3: 318-322 .
Sanchez-Villagra, M. R., I. Horovitz, and M. Motokawa. 2006. A comprehensive morphological analysis of talpid moles (Mammalia) phylogenetic relationships Cladistics 22: 59-88 .
Horovitz, I., M. R. Sanchez-Villagra, T. Martin, and O. A. Aguilera. 2006. The fossil record of Phoberomys pattersoni Mones 1980 (Mammalia, Rodentia) from Urumaco (Late Miocene, Venezuela), with an analysis of phylogenetic relationships Journal of Systematic Palaeontology 4: 293-306 .
Horovitz, I., G. Storch, and T. Martin. 2005. New report on ankle elements of Eomanis krebsi and their taxonomic implications Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 50: 545-548 .
Horovitz, I. 2004. Eutherian mammal systematics and the origins of South American ungulates as based on postcranial osteology Fanfare for an Uncommon Paleontologist: Papers in Honor of Malcolm C. McKenna , Bulletin of Carnegie Museum of Natural History 36: 63-79 .
MacPhee, R. D. E. and I. Horovitz. 2004. New craniodental remains of the Quaternary Jamaican monkey Xenothrix mcgregori (Xenotrichini, Callicebinae, Pitheciidae), with a reconsideration of the Aotus hypothesis American Museum Novitates 3434: 1-51 .
Asher, R., I. Horovitz, and M. R. Sanchez-Villagra. 2004. First combined cladistic analysis of marsupial mammal interrelationships Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 33: 240-250 .
Horovitz, I. and M. R. Sanchez-Villagra. 2003. A morphological analysis of marsupial higher level phylogenetic relationships Cladistics 19: 181-212 .