Please cite this article as: Ulbricht, A., Maul, L.C., Schulz, E.,Can mesowear analysis be applied to small mammals? A pilot-study on leporines and murines, Mammalian Biology (2014), http://dx. Abstract 14In recent years, various methods have been developed to infer from mammal tooth wear 15 patterns the abrasiveness of the food they consumed, which reflects the amount of dust in 16 their habitat and thus the environment they inhabit. One of these methods is mesowear 17 analysis, which is applied particularly to fossils in order to reconstruct palaeoenvironment, 18 but increasingly also to species protection management of recent animals. In numerous 19 studies this method has been applied to the teeth of large herbivorous mammals. Despite 20 the well-known importance of small mammal fossils, which occur in great numbers in 21 countless Cenozoic sites giving a large sample size and provide significant palaeontological 22 data, mesowear analysis has not yet been applied to this group. In the present work, teeth 23 of various hare and mice species (Leporinae and Murinae) are subjected to a mesowear 24 analysis for the first time. We aim to test the applicability of the method in these groups. 25Our results clearly indicate that significant mesowear signals are evident in Leporinae as well 26 as Murinae, reflecting known habitat conditions of the species. Furthermore, problems and 27 limitations of the application of the mesowear methods on small mammal teeth are 28 discussed. 29

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