What is "archonta"

The Archonta are a group of mammals, considered a superorder in some classifications, which consists of the following orders:

• Primates
• Plesiadapiformes (extinct—primate-like archontans)
• Scandentia (treeshrews)
• Dermoptera (colugos)

While bats were traditionally included in Archonta, recent genetic analysis has suggested that bats actually belong in Laurasiatheria. A revised category, Euarchonta, excluding bats, has been proposed.

It has been suggested that this taxon may have arisen in the Early Cretaceous (more than one hundred million years ago) and so there may be other explanatory models for mammalian evolution beside an explosive radiation from a single surviving lineage following the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction of the Mesozoic megafauna, such as a series of prior radiations related to the breakup of Gondwana and Laurasia allowing for more survivors.