nchazarra Posted February 12, 2013 Share Posted February 12, 2013 I have found these specimens on spanish pliocene fluviodeltaic sediments. Any help with the ids? Thanks in advance! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MammothPaleoGuy Posted February 12, 2013 Share Posted February 12, 2013 (edited) Hum. The little caniform tooth looked a little hyrax-y, but that doesn't match the mandible fragment. Where in Spain was this found, by the way? My wife is from Puerto Santa Maria in Cadiz. Edited February 12, 2013 by MammothPaleoGuy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nchazarra Posted February 12, 2013 Author Share Posted February 12, 2013 Hi MammothPaleoGuy!, First, thanks for your answer! Second, it was found 40 km South from Alicante, in the Vega Baja basin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichW9090 Posted February 12, 2013 Share Posted February 12, 2013 What is the scale? Really hard to judge without it. The lower jaw is a rodent of some sort. The plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nchazarra Posted February 12, 2013 Author Share Posted February 12, 2013 RichW9090, each square is 4mm on each side. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MammothPaleoGuy Posted February 12, 2013 Share Posted February 12, 2013 OK, I find this pretty intriguing, so I did some digging in the PbDb. Here’s what I’ve got for Pliocene mammals of Spain: Order Artiodactyla: 18 taxa in Pliocene Spain. All a long shot to my mind, but you never know. Family Bovidae: 10 taxa in Pliocene Spain. All selenodont and all too big, I think. Family Cervidae: 7 taxa in Pliocene Spain. Ditto. Family Suidae: 1 taxon in Pliocene Spain. . . . Nah. [*]Order Carnivora: 20 taxa in Pliocene Spain. None of them a good match, to my mind. The bit of jaw you’ve got doesn’t have any trenchant looking teeth. If you had procyonids like Ailurus in Spain, then maybe, but the PbDb doesn’t mention any. [*]Order Cetacea: 2 taxa in Pliocene Spain. Laughable. [*]Order Chiroptera: 4 taxa in Pliocene Spain. Not likely. [*]Order Lagomorpha: 10 taxa in Pliocene Spain. I checked, but none of them look probable. Still, there were of few Ochotonids that I couldn’t find any information for; you might check there. [*]Order Lipotyphla: 11 taxa in Pliocene Spain. [*]Family Erinaceidae: 2 taxa in Pliocene Spain. They’re in the right size range, but your teeth don’t look much like the teeth from the extant hedgehog Erinaceus. It could be from the ancient hedgehog Galerix, but I couldn’t find any illustrations of their lower teeth. [*]Family Talpidae: 9 taxa in Pliocene Spain. Too small, I think. [*]Order Perissodactyla: 9 taxa in Pliocene Spain. All too large. [*]Order Primates: 1 taxon in Pliocene Spain. Dunno. I’ll get back to you. I suppose it’s possible. [*]Order Proboscidea: 3 taxa in Pliocene Spain. WAY too big. [*]Family Castoridae: 1 taxon in Pliocene Spain. Too big, doesn’t look right. [*]Family Cricetidae: 26 taxa in Pliocene Spain. I’m doubtful. Cricetids have really swoopy (for lack of a better word) enamel. Still, maybe yours is unusually heavily worn. [*]Family Gliridae: 12 taxa in Pliocene Spain. The enamel bands in glirid teeth seem more complicated than in your sample. Still, I’m not a rodent man – I can’t be sure. [*]Family Hystricidae: 2 taxa in Pliocene Spain. Hystricids seem to have lophodont molars, distinctly unlike yours. [*]Family Muridae: 24 taxa in Pliocene Spain. Yours don’t look like rat teeth to me. [*]Family Sciuridae: 3 taxa in Pliocene Spain. None of the ones I saw looked quite right, but they looked closer than most of the other rodents I checked. Look up: [*]Order Rodentia: 68 taxa in Pliocene Spain. A strong possibility, not least because Rich, a better paleontologist than I, said so. Genus Atlantoxerus Genus Pliopetaurista Genus Sciurus [*]Order Sirenia: 1 taxon in Pliocene Spain. No. Way bigger than yours if nothing else. [*]Order Soricomorpha: 12 taxa in Pliocene Spain. It would have to be a very big shrew . . . and even then the shape isn’t right. CONCLUSION: I’m leaning toward a hedgehog (purely on size) or a rodent (purely on Rich’s better educated/experienced say-so). Alternately, it could be that blasted monkey – I don’t know much about monkeys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MammothPaleoGuy Posted February 12, 2013 Share Posted February 12, 2013 Eh, Dolichopithecus doesn't look quite right either; though it is in the right size class . . . Scratch the monkey. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cris Posted February 12, 2013 Share Posted February 12, 2013 On the group photo of the bones, the bottom phalanx should be identifiable (somewhat) if more photos are taken of it from different angles. Cool finds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichW9090 Posted February 12, 2013 Share Posted February 12, 2013 Are you seeing pictures on thre PbDb? The plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichW9090 Posted February 12, 2013 Share Posted February 12, 2013 (edited) MammothPaleoGuy, if I had to guess, without having the specimen in hand, I'd say it is a glirid (doormouse) lower jaw. m1-m3 measures only about 10 mm in length, too small by far for a shrew, which anyway has more than 3 lower cheek teeth (shrews generally have one premolar and three molars). The teeth in this specimen are rather worn, so the typical cusp pattern of the Gliridae has been lost. Dolichopithecus is way larger than this. Hedgehogs have anywhere from 5 to 7 cheek teeth in the lower jaw, so that eliminates them. Rich Edited February 12, 2013 by RichW9090 The plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nchazarra Posted February 12, 2013 Author Share Posted February 12, 2013 I thought it could be this: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichW9090 Posted February 12, 2013 Share Posted February 12, 2013 (edited) Those are good candidates. What species are they? Edited February 12, 2013 by RichW9090 The plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nchazarra Posted February 13, 2013 Author Share Posted February 13, 2013 Cricetid: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018212004130 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichW9090 Posted February 13, 2013 Share Posted February 13, 2013 Cricetid is a good possibility, but none of those - they are all from South America. So at this point I think those are the two possibilities: glirid or cricetid. The plural of "anecdote" is not "evidence". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MammothPaleoGuy Posted February 13, 2013 Share Posted February 13, 2013 MammothPaleoGuy, if I had to guess, without having the specimen in hand, I'd say it is a glirid (doormouse) lower jaw. m1-m3 measures only about 10 mm in length, too small by far for a shrew, which anyway has more than 3 lower cheek teeth (shrews generally have one premolar and three molars). The teeth in this specimen are rather worn, so the typical cusp pattern of the Gliridae has been lost. Dolichopithecus is way larger than this. Hedgehogs have anywhere from 5 to 7 cheek teeth in the lower jaw, so that eliminates them. Rich Gotcha; I live and I learn. As far as my informal research methodology here, I used the PbDb to put together an occurence matrix of Pliocene mammalian taxa of Spain, then used Google Scholar to look for diagrams of each family's dentition. Shoulda gone to genera. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MammothPaleoGuy Posted February 13, 2013 Share Posted February 13, 2013 (edited) Blancomys. See figures 4&8. Edited February 13, 2013 by MammothPaleoGuy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MammothPaleoGuy Posted February 13, 2013 Share Posted February 13, 2013 For further info see: http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=scripta;sid=48c0dc4919647b20990a169818db727d;rgn=main;idno=m08136a01;view=text http://dpc.uba.uva.nl/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=scripta;idno=m08136a01;view=text;sid=b6acdb8885236b589162345c15002cb3;rgn=div2;cc=scripta;node=m08136a01%3A4.15 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nchazarra Posted February 13, 2013 Author Share Posted February 13, 2013 Thanks for the help! Any guesses for the other teeth? Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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