Early Pliocene hominin evolutionary scenarios proposed to date mostly rely on paleontological investigations from eastern Africa. Filling major geographical gaps in the fossil record could potentially invalidate these scenarios and stimulate development of improved theories. Based on published literature, no Pliocene fossil of continental vertebrates have been discovered in Western Africa and the situation is only slightly better in central and northern Africa. Here, we expand the Pliocene vertebrate continental fossil record to western Africa with the description of the Tobène fauna, a new fossiliferous Neogene locality from Senegal. We describe a diversity of large mammals, including at least ten taxa based on fragmentary remains recovered from alluvial channel deposits. Estimation based on weathering events and biochronology suggests an early Pliocene age. Most of these mammalian taxa were widely distributed over the African continent during the early Pliocene. Possible faunal correlations with eastern African localities call for continent-wide paleontological investigations.***************

迄今为止提出的上新世早期人类进化情景主要依赖于来自东非的古生物学调查。填补化石记录中的主要地理空白可能会使这些假设无效并刺激改进理论的发展。根据已发表的文献，西非尚未发现上新世大陆脊椎动物化石，中非和北非的情况略好。在这里，我们将上新世脊椎动物大陆化石记录扩展到西非，并描述了来自塞内加尔的新近纪新近纪化石产地 Tobène 动物群。我们描述了多种大型哺乳动物，包括至少 10 个基于从冲积河道沉积物中回收的碎片残骸的分类群。基于风化事件和生物年代学的估计表明上新世早期。这些哺乳动物类群中的大多数在上新世早期广泛分布在非洲大陆。与东非地区可能存在的动物群相关性需要进行全大陆古生物学调查。****************