Abstract
Deinotheres (Proboscidea, Deinotheriidae) are a clade of non-elephantiform proboscideans that originated in Africa and dispersed into Eurasia by the early Miocene. In Europe, deinotheres are first recorded in Greece during MN3, although they did not become a common faunal element throughout Europe until MN4. Early Miocene (MN3–MN4) deinothere remains from Europe are generally assigned to a different species (Prodeinotherium cuvieri) than those from the early middle Miocene (Prodeinotherium bavaricum; MN5–MN6). In the Vallès-Penedès Basin (NE Iberian Peninsula), Prodeinotherium remains are very scarce and largely remain unpublished. To clarify their taxonomic assignment, we describe the available material and compare it with that from elsewhere in Europe. Based on size and a few diagnostic occlusal details, we tentatively recognize both Prodeinotherium cf. P. cuvieri and Prodeinotherium cf. P. bavaricum in the basin. Although all the studied sites had previously been correlated to MN4, the recognition of P. cf. P. bavaricum at els Casots and les Escletxes is consistent with ongoing litho- and magnetostratigraphic studies suggesting a slightly younger age for these sites. The lack of Prodeinotherium remains in older (MN3) localities from the Vallès-Penedès Basin, where Gomphotherium is already recorded, further supports the view that deinotheres dispersed into Western Europe somewhat later than gomphotheres.
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Data Availability
The fossil material studied in this paper is housed and adequately curated in the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, as is accessible by other researchers. All the data generated in the course of this study is provided in the paper or the supplementary material.
Abbreviations
- CHE:
-
Chevilly
- ICP:
-
Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, Sabadell, Barcelona, Spain
- IPS:
-
Acronym of the ICP collections (for the former ‘Institut de Paleontologia de Sabadell’).
- BL:
-
Buccolingual
- BLI:
-
Breadth/length index
- L:
-
Left
- MD:
-
Mesiodistal
- R:
-
Right
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Acknowledgements
This work has been funded by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (CGL2016-76431-P and CGL2017-82654-P, AEI/FEDER-UE), the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (RYC-2013-12470 to I.C.V), the Generalitat de Catalunya (CERCA Program and 2017 SGR 116), and the Operational Programme Research, Development and Education—Project "Postdoc@MUNI" (No. CZ.02.2.69/0.0/0.0/16_027/0008360 to À.H.L). We thank Jordi Galindo, Josep M. Robles, and Albert G. Sellés for technical assistance with the ICP collections, as well as two anonymous reviewers for constructive comments that helped to improve a previous version of this paper.
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Gasamans, N., Luján, À.H., Pons-Monjo, G. et al. The Record of Prodeinotherium in the Iberian Peninsula: New Data from the Vallès-Penedès Basin. J Mammal Evol 28, 647–660 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-021-09543-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-021-09543-y