Megantereon adroveri from the Early Pleistocene of Taurida Cave, Crimea, and the European Lineage of Dirk-toothed Cats

Recent field surveys performed in the newly-discovered Taurida Cave (Crimea, Russia, Late Villafranchian, 1.8-1.5 Ma) enabled us to unearth dentognathic remains of the dirk-toothed cat Megantereon. Here we describe in detail the recovered remains further comparing it anatomically and biometrically w...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Lavrov, A. V., Gimranov, Dmitry|||0000-0002-9592-5211, Madurell-Malapeira, Joan|||0000-0003-4639-9451, Lopatin, A. V.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de Documents de la UAB
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ddd.uab.cat:250708
Acceso en línea:https://ddd.uab.cat/record/250708
https://dx.doi.org/urn:doi:10.1007/s10914-021-09578-1
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Megantereon
Machairodontinae
Mandibular corpus
Pleistocene
Late Villafranchian
Crimea
Russia
Descripción
Sumario:Recent field surveys performed in the newly-discovered Taurida Cave (Crimea, Russia, Late Villafranchian, 1.8-1.5 Ma) enabled us to unearth dentognathic remains of the dirk-toothed cat Megantereon. Here we describe in detail the recovered remains further comparing it anatomically and biometrically with coeval Eurasian and African sites. The performed analysis suggests the inclusion of the Taurida remains in the hypodigm of the Villafranchain European species Megantereon adroveri, a medium-sized saber-toothed cat poorly known in Europe as a consequence of the scarcity and fragmentary nature of the known remains. Our results and the putative transitional characters displayed by the Taurida specimen support the idea put forward by previous authors of a continuous European lineage of dirk-toothed cats.