Persiatherium rodleri, gen. et sp. nov. (Mammalia, Rhinocerotidae) from the upper Miocene of Maragheh (northwestern iran)

Abstract

Print) 1937-2809 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ujvp20 Persiatherium rodleri, gen. et sp. nov. (Mammalia, Rhinocerotidae) from the upper Miocene of Maragheh (northwestern Iran) Luca Pandolfi To cite this article: Luca Pandolfi (2015): Persiatherium rodleri, gen. et sp. nov. (Mammalia, Rhinocerotidae) from the upper Miocene of Maragheh (northwestern Iran), Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology,ABSTRACT-A new genus and species of Rhinocerotidae, Persiatherium rodleri, gen. et sp. nov., a new acerathere rhinocerotid from the early upper Miocene (ca. 9 Ma) locality of Kopran, Maragheh (northwestern Iran), is described. The new taxon can be clearly distinguished from the three species previously reported at Maragheh: Iranotherium morgani, Ceratotherium neumayri, and Chilotherium persiae. Moreover, P. rodleri can be distinguished from the latest middle and late Miocene elasmotheres, teleoceratins, and rhinoceroses recorded in Eurasia and Africa. The new taxon displays morphological characters close to Aceratheriini. However, the presence of plesiomorphic characters on the teeth (presence of P1, continuous lingual cingula on the premolars, labial cingula on the premolars, lingual cingula on the molars, weak protocone constriction on the molars, absence of crista and antecrochet on the molars), of peculiar morphological characters (e.g., lingual side of the protoloph and metaloph directed disto-lingually on P2 with the presence of a lingual groove on the hypocone), as well as some derived characters (e.g., short metaloph on the molars), enable its distinction from other Aceratheriini. A cladistic analysis shows that P. rodleri is the sister taxon to 'Aceratherium huadeensis'. Though the latter displays more derived features than P. rodleri, their phylogenetic relationships allow inclusion of both species in the same new genus.

Evolution of Old World Equus and origin of the zebra-ass clade

“…The complete sample of the specimens coded in the cladistic matrix is reported in S. text. The matrix used in this cladistic analysis includes 68 novel characters, combined with the most recent matrices for equids and perissodactyl cladistic analyses 12 , 20 , 43 – 46 (Table S1 ). The characters have been coded by direct observations.…”

Rhinocerotidae from the Upper Miocene deposits of the Western Pannonian Basin (Hungary): implications for migration routes and biogeography

“…D. pikermiensis occurs in the Turolian deposits of the Balkan Peninsula, in particular in Greece and Bulgaria (Geraads 1988;Heissig 1999;Geraads & Spassov 2009). C. neumayri has been reported from several fossiliferous localities (MN 10-MN 13) of the Balkan Peninsula, Caucasus, Anatolia and Iran (Osborn 1900;Geraads 1988;Heissig 1999;Geraads & Spassov 2009;Giaourtsakis 2009;Pandolfi 2015a). The coexistence of C. neumayri and D. pikermiensis is well-documented at Pikermi and Samos and the two species are constantly present in Greece until the MN 12-MN 13 transition (Heissig 1996).…”

Rhinocerotidae from the early Miocene of the Negev (Israel) and implications for the dispersal of early Neogene rhinoceroses

“…Gaindatherium and Lartetotherium are closely related, according to several cladistic analyses (Cerdeño, 1995;Antoine et al, 2003Antoine et al, , 2010Pandolfi, 2015;Lu et al, 2016), but the morphological differences between them probably justify generic separation (Heissig, 2012). The possibility of Lartetotherium and Gaindatherium evolving from the same common ancestor cannot be ruled out (Becker and Tissier, 2020), and the Negev record could provide evidence in support of this hypothesis.…”