?Amphictis(Carnivora, Ailuridae) from the Belgrade Formation of North Carolina, USA

Abstract

<jats:p>Miocene terrestrial mammals are poorly known from the Atlantic Coastal Plain. Fossils of the Order Carnivora from this time and region are especially rare. We describe a carnivoran mandible with a p4 from the late Oligocene or early early Miocene Belgrade Formation in Jones County, North Carolina. Comparisons are made with carnivoran jaws with similar premolar and molar lengths from the late Oligocene and Miocene of North America and Eurasia. These indicate that the North Carolina jaw is assignable to the Ailuridae, a family whose only living member is the red panda. The jaw is tentatively referred to <jats:italic>Amphictis</jats:italic>, a genus known elsewhere from the late Oligocene and early Miocene of Europe and the early Miocene (Hemingfordian) of North America.</jats:p> <jats:p>The North Carolina mandible compares best with the late Oligocene (MP 28) <jats:italic>Amphictis ambiguus</jats:italic> from Pech du Fraysse, France, the oldest known member of the Family Ailuridae, and with the early Miocene (MN 1–MN 2a) <jats:italic>A. schlosseri</jats:italic> from southwestern Germany. This identification is compatible with a late late Arikareean (Ar4, early Miocene, MN 2-3 equivalent) age assignment for the other terrestrial mammals of the Belgrade Formation.</jats:p>

An exquisitely preserved skeleton of Eoarctos vorax (nov. gen. et sp.) from Fitterer Ranch, North Dakota (early Oligocene) and systematics and phylogeny of North American early arctoids (Carnivora, Caniformia)

“…Whereas Amphictis may make a reasonable case for being 'ancestral' to the ailurids, the morphological gap between Amphictis and Ailurus (and its immediate allies) is too great to permit much confidence in such an assertion. There are many species of Amphictis in Europe and its presence in the United States was based on very fragmentary material (Baskin et al, 2020). Europe thus is a more likely candidate for the origin of the ailurids.…”