David M. Alba

David M. Alba
Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont | ICP · Area Neogene and Quaternary Faunas

Ph.D.

About

396
Publications
166,847
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6,077
Citations
Additional affiliations
July 2012 - present
Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont
May 2008 - October 2009
University of Florence
May 2008 - June 2012
Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont
Position
  • Research

Publications

Publications (396)
Article
Full-text available
European Miocene tapirs (Perissodactyla, Tapiridae) are mainly documented by isolated and fragmentary remains, and little is known about the morphological variability of the various recognized species, in particular concerning the deciduous dentition. Here, we describe new material from three Vallesian (Late Miocene) sites of the Vallès-Penedès Bas...
Conference Paper
The origin of primates of modern aspect (euprimates) was characterized by important changes in the postcranial morphology associated with shifts in the ecological niche. The tarsus, among other regions of the skeleton, has been extensively studied because of its critical role during locomotion. In this study, we quantified the shape of the astragal...
Article
Full-text available
The Pliocene faunas of the northeastern Iberian Peninsula are poorly known due to the scarcity of deposits from this interval. In this context, the site of Sant Nofre-Campredó (Baix Ebre, Catalonia, Spain), comprising two contemporaneous outcrops belonging to geologically correlated sections (Sant Nofre and Campredó-Via Fèrria), makes a significant...
Article
The phylogenetic relationships of the small-bodied catarrhine Pliobates cataloniae (~11.6 Ma, NE Iberian Peninsula) have been controversial since its original description. However, the recent report of additional dentognathic remains has supported its crouzeliid pliopithecoid status. Based on the available hypodigm, the molar enameledentine junctio...
Article
Very few remains of elapid snakes are known from the Iberian Peninsula, but these include a probable endemic extinct species of cobra, Naja iberica from the Late Miocene. We here describe isolated cobra vertebrae from several Middle-Late Miocene localities in the Vall es-Pened es Basin (Catalonia, Spain). All of these fossils are herein referred to...
Article
Full-text available
No suid remains have been reported from the Miocene site of Can Missert (Terrassa; Vallès-Penedès Basin, NE Iberian Peninsula), variously correlated to MN7+8 (late Aragonian) or MN9 (early Vallesian) due to the uncertain presence of hipparionin equids. The recent donation of fossils collected decades ago by amateur naturalists has confirmed the pre...
Article
Full-text available
The systematic status of the small-bodied catarrhine primate Pliobates cataloniae, from the Miocene (11.6 Ma) of Spain, is controversial because it displays a mosaic of primitive and derived features compared with extant hominoids (apes and humans). Cladistic analyses have recovered Pliobates as either a stem hominoid or as a pliopithecoid stem cat...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Hominid fossils from the 8.7 Ma site of Çorakyerler (central Anatolia, Türkiye), originally attributed to Ouranopithecus, have been recently re-assigned to the new taxon Anadoluvius turkae. Multiple cladistic analyses recognize the clade including Anadoluvius, Ouranopithecus, and Graecopithecus (graecopithecins) as stem hominines, but the origin of...
Preprint
Full-text available
Ancient tooth enamel, and to some extent dentin and bone, contain characteristic peptides that persist for long periods of time. In particular, peptides from the enamel proteome (enamelome) have been used to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships of fossil specimens and to estimate divergence times. However, the enamelome is based on only about...
Article
Oreopithecus bambolii Gervais, 1872, from the Late Miocene of Tusco-Sardinia, is the latest non-cercopithecoid catarrhine from Europe. Its geographic and phylogenetic origins remain uncertain despite being well known from craniodental and postcranial remains. Currently, there is a general agreement about its hominoid status (ape and human clade) bu...
Article
Full-text available
The earliest Vallesian (~11.2 Ma) site of Castell de Barberà (CB) figures prominently in the paleoanthropological literature because of the co-occurrence of pliopithecoid and hominoid primates. However, the rest of the fauna remains understudied. In the case of suids, fossils of Albanohyus castellensis and Listriodon splendens have been described i...
Preprint
In the Mediterranean region, the study of fossil pollen has provided a comprehensive spatiotemporal paleoclimatic and paleovegetational picture of the Neogene flora and vegetation. The NW Mediterranean sector is a reference area for the study of vertebrate evolution, especially during the Middle Miocene, but paleofloristic and paleovegetational pat...
Article
Pierolapithecus catalaunicus (~12 million years ago, northeastern Spain) is key to understanding the mosaic nature of hominid (great ape and human) evolution. Notably, its skeleton indicates that an orthograde (upright) body plan preceded suspensory adaptations in hominid evolution. However, there is ongoing debate about this species, partly becaus...
Article
Hispanopithecus laietanus from the Late Miocene (9.8 Ma) of Can Llobateres 1 (CLL1; Vall es-Pened es Basin, NE Iberian Peninsula) represents one of the latest occurrences of fossil apes in Western mainland Europe, where they are last recorded at~9.5 Ma. The paleoenvironment of CLL1 is thus relevant for understanding the extinction of European homin...
Conference Paper
The earliest primates of modern aspect (euprimates) display a series of traits (e.g., nails instead of claws, stereoscopic vision, opposable hallux and pollex, adaptations for grasp-leaping locomotion) that distinguish them from other arboreal animals. Several non-excluding adaptive scenarios have been proposed to explain the acquisition of these t...
Conference Paper
Los anficiónidos son carnívoros arctoideos que aparecieron durante el Eoceno en la región holártica. En Europa, experimentaron una importante radiación evolutiva durante el Mioceno, dando lugar a algunas de las formas más típicas de la familia. En este trabajo se estudia el material de Amphicyonidae proveniente de varios yacimientos de la cuenca de...
Chapter
Full-text available
NOW ( New and Old Worlds ) is a global database of fossil mammal occurrences, currently containing around 68,000 locality-species entries. The database spans the last 66 million years, with its primary focus on the last 23 million years. Whereas the database contains records from all continents, the main focus and coverage of the database historica...
Article
The morphological adaptations of euprimates have been linked to their origin and early evolution in an arboreal environment. However, the ancestral and early locomotor repertoire of this group remains contentious. Although some tarsal bones like the astragalus and the calcaneus have been thoroughly studied, the navicular remains poorly studied desp...
Article
Full-text available
The taxonomy of the soft-shell turtle Rafetus bohemicus (Liebus, 1930), family Triony-chidae, subfamily Trionychinae, is revised based on new and previously mentioned material (including the type material) from the Early Miocene (Burdigalian, MN 3) sites of the Most Basin, Czechia. Given that the diagnosis was so far based only on plastral elements...
Conference Paper
The transition between archaic primates (plesiadapiforms) and primates of modern aspect (euprimates) is critical to understand the origin and early evolution of this order. We used calcaneal shape to reconstruct the locomotor repertoire of 25 early primate representatives, including plesiadapiforms (5), adapiforms (9), omomyiforms (8), and stem ant...
Conference Paper
The astragalus is one of the most examined postcranial elements in functional studies, as it is the main facilitator of plantar and dorsal flexion and contributes to the inversion-eversion and abduction-adduction movements of the foot. In primates, which usually navigate through the arboreal milieu, this bone is critical to accommodate the complex...
Article
The Pliocene and Early Pleistocene three-toed horses of Western Eurasia (Caucasus, Anatolia, Balkans, Eastern and Central Europe, Italian and Iberian Peninsulas and England) have been studied since the second half of the 19th Century, leading to different interpretations of their taxonomy and evolution. Herein we provide a revision of the taxa from...
Article
A vast diversity of catarrhines primates has been uncovered in the Middle to Late Miocene (12.5-9.6 Ma) of the Vallès-Penedès Basin (northeastern Spain), including several hominid species (Pierolapithecus catalaunicus, Anoiapithecus brevirostris, Dryopithecus fontani, Hispanopithecus laietanus, and Hispanopithecus crusafonti) plus some remains attr...
Article
Hominoids diverged from cercopithecoids during the Oligocene in Afro-Arabia, initially radiating in that continent and subsequently dispersing into Eurasia. From the Late Miocene onward, the geographic range of hominoids progressively shrank, except for hominins, which dispersed out of Africa during the Pleistocene. Although the overall picture of...
Article
Full-text available
Although the suid assemblages from the Miocene of the Vallès-Penedès Basin (NE Iberian Peninsula) are reasonably well known, taxonomic studies devoted to them have lagged behind in recent decades. We describe the unpublished suid dentognathic remains from the earliest Vallesian (MN9) of Creu de Conill 20 (CCN20; 11.18 Ma), which represents the Firs...
Chapter
Full-text available
Humans share many morphological features with living great apes but also display unique characteristics related to habitual bipedalism, manipulation, cognition, diet, and sociosexual behavior. Darwin inferred that all these features were interrelated but could not determine their order of appearance. Since then, molecular data have revealed that hu...
Article
The Abocador de Can Mata (ACM) composite stratigraphic sequence (els Hostalets de Pierola, Vallès-Penedès Basin, NE Iberian Peninsula) has yielded a diverse primate assemblage from the late Aragonian (Middle to Late Miocene). Detailed litho-, bio-, and magnetostratigraphic control has enabled an accurate dating of these fossil remains. Comparable d...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Cercopithecoids are relatively common in the fossil Plio-Pleistocene record of Africa and are found in most South African hominin-bearing localities. Due to their usefulness in paleoenvironmental reconstruction and biostratigraphy, many research efforts have been dedicated to them. However, the taxonomic attribution of several specimens remains pro...
Conference Paper
The calcaneus plays a critical role in efficient foot movement required to navigate differing substrate conditions such as of the arboreal milieu. Therefore, we quantitatively studied the functional morphology of this bone in a large sample of extant primates using a novel 3D geometric morphometrics approach that combines anatomical landmarks along...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The Pliocene and Early Pleistocene three-toed horses of Western Eurasia (Caucasus, Anatolia, Balkans, Eastern and Central Europe, Italian and Iberian peninsulae and England) have been studied since the second half of the 19th Century, with the following taxa identified from several fossiliferous sites: “Hipparion” crassum, “Hipparion” rocinantis, “...
Article
The suid dentognathic remains from the Middle Miocene (late Aragonian, MN6) site of Ca l’Almirall (formerly ‘Can Almirall’; Vallès-Penedès Basin, NE Iberian Peninsula) were originally assigned to Hyotherium soemmeringi and subsequently to Conohyus steinheimensis (currently Versoporcus steinheimensis). However, such a taxonomic attribution is not ba...
Poster
Full-text available
Pliobates cataloniae is a small-bodied catarrhine (~4–5 kg) from the Miocene of NE Iberian Peninsula. Originally this species was recovered by a cladistic analysis as a stem hominoid showing a mixture of primitive (stem catarrhine-like) and derived (modern hominoid-like) craniodental and postcranial features (Alba et al., 2015 ). Later on, this tax...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Tooth crown morphology plays a critical role in primate systematics, notably to make taxonomic assessments and to reconstruct the evolutionary history of hominids and hominins in particular. Compared with the outer enamel surface, which can be affected by wear and various taphonomic processes, the enamel-dentine junction (EDJ) is generally better p...
Poster
Full-text available
Phylogenetic hypotheses about the Miocene small-bodied catarrhine Pliobates cataloniae (11.6 Ma, NE Iberian Peninsula) consider it a stem hominoid, a pliopithecoid, or a dendropithecid. Given the phylogenetic signal carried by semicircular canals, we compared their morphology in Pliobates with that of extant and fossil anthropoids using deformation...
Article
Els Casots is one of the richest fossil vertebrate sites of the Vallès-Penedès Basin (Catalonia, Spain). It was discovered in 1989 and excavated briefly during the 1990s, resulting in the recovery of thousands of remains and the erection of several new mammal species. Excavations were resumed in 2018 and continue to date. Here we provide updated re...
Article
Homo erectus s.l. is key for deciphering the origin and subsequent evolution of genus Homo. However, the characterization of this species is hindered by the existence of multiple variants in both mainland and insular Asia, as a result of divergent chronogeographical evolutionary trends, genetic isolation, and interbreeding with other human species....
Conference Paper
The calcaneus is among the most useful post-cranial elements for inferring the positional behavior of extinct primates, which is key to test hypotheses on the paleobiology and adapta-tions of this group throughout its evolutionary history. With this aim in mind, we quantitatively assessed the phylogenetic signal embedded in the calcaneus based on a...
Article
The small-bodied Miocene catarrhine Pliobates cataloniae (11.6 Ma, Spain) displays a mosaic of catarrhine symplesiomorphies and hominoid synapomorphies that hinders deciphering its phylogenetic relationships. Based on cladistic analyses, it has been interpreted as a stem hominoid or as a pliopithecoid. Intriguingly, the carotid canal orientation of...
Poster
Full-text available
Housed in the petrosal portion of the temporal bone, the inner ear bony labyrinth holds morphological information that has been used to reconstruct phylogenetic relationships, to ascertain taxonomic affinities [1], and to infer locomotor behaviors [2] and hearing capabilities [3]. Cochlear shape has been proven useful to ascertain the taxonomy and...
Article
Eomellivora is a large-bodied mellivorine mustelid genus widely distributed throughout Eurasia and North America during the late Miocene (MN9-MN13). Here, we report the oldest Eurasian material of Eomellivora based on a palate and two mandibular fragments from ACM/PTA-A2, a pre-Vallesian (11.21 Ma; latest MN7 +8) locality of Abocador de Can Mata (V...
Article
Pliopithecoids are a diverse group of Miocene catarrhine primates from Eurasia. Their positional behavior is still unknown, and many species are known exclusively from dentognathic remains. Here, we describe a proximal radius (IPS66267) from the late Miocene of Castell de Barberà (Vallès-Penedès Basin, NE Iberian Peninsula) that represents the firs...
Article
Extensive fieldwork at Abocador de Can Mata (north-east Iberian Peninsula) has uncovered a previously unsuspected diversity of catarrhine primates in the middle Miocene (12.5–11.6 Ma) of Europe. However, the distinction of the great ape genera Pierolapithecus and Anoiapithecus from Dryopithecus (supported by craniodental differences) has been dispu...
Article
Full-text available
A distinctive ancestor There has been much focus on the evolution of primates and especially where and how humans diverged in this process. It has often been suggested that the last common ancestor between humans and other apes, especially our closest relative, the chimpanzee, was ape- or chimp-like. Almécija et al. review this area and conclude th...
Article
Czujan's sandpit is an abandoned quarry in the Vienna Basin (Mikulov, Czech Republic) that has yielded an important middle Miocene vertebrate assemblage. Here we re-describe the site from the perspective of sedimentology, taphonomy, and paleoenvironments, and further review the biochronology of the fauna to clarify the age. The updated faunal list...
Article
The evolutionary history of Bison is a matter of debate due to the scarcity of fossil remains from the earliest members of this clade and the close morphological similarities among species. To clarify the taxonomic status of the earliest stouter bison and their relationships to their putative ancestor, Leptobos, as well as other primitive forms tra...
Article
Full-text available
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 remai...
Article
Full-text available
Dentognathic remains of European Middle Pleistocene Vulpini are scarce and fragmentary. They have classically been attributed to several species, but many taxonomic and phylogenetic uncertainties remain. Here we describe a fox well-preserved maxilla with associated mandible from the Middle Pleistocene layers of the Vallparadís Section (EVT3; ca. 0....
Article
Pliopithecoids are an extinct group of catarrhine primates from the Miocene of Eurasia. More than 50 years ago, they were linked to hylobatids due to some morphological similarities, but most subsequent studies have supported a stem catarrhine status, due to the retention of multiple plesiomorphic features (e.g., the ectotympanic morphology) relati...
Article
Significance Reconstructing the phylogenetic relationships of extinct apes is challenging due to their fragmentary fossil record and the recurrent independent evolution of morphological features. Given the relevance of the phylogenetic signal of the bony labyrinth, here we assess the phylogenetic affinities of the late Miocene great apes Hispanopit...
Article
Full-text available
Background The two main primate groups recorded throughout the European Miocene, hominoids and pliopithecoids, seldom co-occur. Due to both their rarity and insufficiently understood palaeoecology, it is currently unclear whether the infrequent co-occurrence of these groups is due to sampling bias or reflects different ecological preferences. Here...
Article
Three species of Deinotherium sensu stricto (Proboscidea, Deinotheriidae), i.e., excluding Prodeinotherium, generally considered to have nonoverlapping chronostratigraphic distributions, are currently recognized from the Miocene of Europe: Deinotherium levius (late Astaracian/Aragonian, MN7+8), Deinotherium giganteum (type species; Vallesian, MN9–M...
Article
The dispersal of Crocodylus from Africa to Europe during the Miocene is not well understood. A small collection of cranial fragments and postcranial elements from the latest Miocene (6.2 Ma) site of Venta del Moro (Valencia, Spain) have previously been referred to Crocodylus cf. C. checchiai Maccagno, 1947 without accompanying descriptions. Here we...
Article
Full-text available
We describe new dental remains of the genus Iberictis (Carnivora: Mustelidae) from the late early Miocene of the Iberian Peninsula. The new fossils of Iberictis azanzae from Artesilla (16.5–16.3 Ma, MN4; Calatayud-Teruel Basin, Zaragoza, Spain) add important morphological information about this species. Material from another species, Iberictis bulo...
Article
Full-text available
Phylogenetic relationships among extinct hominoids (apes and humans) are controversial due to pervasive homoplasy and the incompleteness of the fossil record. The bony labyrinth might contribute to this debate, as it displays strong phylogenetic signal among other mammals. However, the potential of the vestibular apparatus for phylogenetic reconstr...
Article
The Vallparadís composite section (VCS) includes the nearby paleontological sites of Cal Guardiola and Vallparadís Estació (Vallès-Penedès Basin, northeastern Iberian Peninsula). The section spans from before the Jaramillo subchron to the early Middle Pleistocene (ca. 1.2-0.6 Ma). In this study, we describe the suid record from VCS and we review th...
Article
Only a few postcranial remains have been assigned to the Miocene great ape Dryopithecus fontani, leading to uncertainties in the reconstruction of its overall body plan and positional behavior. Here we shed light on the locomotor repertoire of this species through the study of the femoral neck cortical bone (FNCB) distribution of IPS41724, a partia...
Article
Fossil evidence indicates that numerous catarrhine clades of African origin expanded or shifted their ranges into Eurasia, among them macaques Macaca Lacépède, 1799. Macaques represent the sister taxon of African papionins and can thus be used as a model comparing an 'out-of-Africa' with an intra-African, e.g., baboons-Papio Erxleben, 1777 evolutio...
Article
Castell de Barbera�, located in the Valle�s-Penede�s Basin (NE Iberian Peninsula), is one of the few European sites where pliopithecoids (Barberapithecus) and hominoids (cf. Dryopithecus) co-occur. The dating of this Miocene site has proven controversial. A latest Aragonian (MN7þ8, ca. 11.88e11.18 Ma) age was long accepted by most authors, despite...
Article
Full-text available
We describe new specimens of the Miocene moschid Hispanomeryx, from the early Vallesian sites of Castell de Barberà (CB) and Ecoparc de Can Mata (ECM), Vallès-Penedès Basin, representing the first Iberian record of Hispanomeryx outside the inner Miocene basins. Fossils from ECM constitute Hispanomeryx lacetanus, sp. nov., the first Hispanomeryx to...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The Vallparadís composite section includes the paleontological sites of Cal Guardiola and Vallparadís Estació, respectively located in the western and eastern bank of the Torrent de Vallparadís (Terrassa, Catalonia, NE Spain). The Vallparadís section spans from before the Jaramillo subchron to the early Middle Pleistocene (ca. 1.2–0.6 Ma). It inclu...
Article
The Early-Middle Pleistocene Transition (EMPT) (ca. 1.4–0.4 Ma) represents a fundamental transformation in the Earth's climate state, starting at 1.4 Ma with a progressive increase in the amplitude of climatic oscillations and the establishment of strong asymmetry in global ice volume cycles. The progressive shift from a 41kyr–100kyr orbital rhythm...
Article
Worm lizards, or amphisbaenians, of the genus Blanus are found in various countries around the Mediterranean Sea. In addition to four extinct species, seven extant taxa are currently recognized. Here, we present the first comparative analysis of the cranial osteology of Blanus including all extant species. The results of this analysis show a homoge...