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Introduction
Paleobiology of Neogene and Quaternary Carnivorans of the Old World
Additional affiliations
January 2011 - present
May 2021 - present
November 2019 - January 2020
Education
September 2003 - December 2010
September 1998 - June 2003
Publications
Publications (211)
The fossil record of European Pliocene and Pleistocene felids reveals a rich diversity of taxa and provides key insights into their evolutionary, ecological, and biogeographic dynamics. This review synthesizes current knowledge on felid species across Europe, highlighting the effects of climatic oscillations and human interactions on their survival...
How snow leopard gradually adapted to the extreme environments in Tibet remains unexplored due to the scanty fossil record in Tibet. Here, we recognize five valid outside-Tibet records of the snow leopard lineage. Our results suggest that the snow leopard dispersed out of the Tibetan Plateau multiple times during the Quaternary. The osteological an...
Saber-toothed cats dominated latest Pliocene to Early Pleistocene ecosystems in the Old World, potentially competing with early hominins for food resources. However, the Pleistocene fossil records of the medium-sized Megantereon are often fragmented and scarce, leading to contentious debates among scholars regarding its evolutionary history.
Previo...
he cave lion lineage records from Spain, Portugal, and Italy hold immense paleobiological significance, offering both recent insights and future potential for discoveries. The Iberian record is particularly noteworthy as it includes the earliest evidence of steppe lions in Western Europe, illuminating their possible migration routes. Additionally,...
The cranial and mandibular fragments of the medium-sized canid from the Early Pleistocene locality of Taurida cave (about 1.8–1.5 Ma) in Crimea are described and included in the hypodigm of the species Canis etruscus Forsyth Major, 1877, a common member of the Late Villafranchian fauna of the Circum-Mediterranean region. This species is reported fo...
A mandible fragment of Acinonyx pardinensis (Croizet et Jobert, 1828) is described from the Early Pleistocene locality in the Taurida cave (Crimea, Late Villafranchian, about 1.8–1.5 Ma). This is the first discovery of the genus Acinonyx in the Pleistocene of Crimea. Along with other felids, such as Homotherium, Megantereon, Panthera, Lynx, and Pum...
Citation: Martínez-Navarro, B.; Madurell-Malapeira, J.; Ros-Montoya, S.; Espigares, M.P.; Rodríguez-Gómez, G.; Rook, L.; Palmqvist, P. The Late Villafranchian Absence of Pigs in Europe. Comment on Iannucci, A. The Occurrence of Suids in the Post-Olduvai to Pre-Jaramillo Pleistocene of Europe and Implications for Late Villafranchian Biochronology an...
The pantherine partial skeleton from the Algar da Manga Larga (MG1355.0001-9), was discovered at the Natural Park of Serras d´Aire e Candeeiros and published in 2006. It comprises a nearly complete cranium and mandible, a damaged distal half of right humerus, a complete left metacarpal III, proximal epiphyses of left metacarpals II and IV and three...
Throughout the Quaternary, the trend of climatic cooling and increasing amplitude of glacial cycles suggests significant changes in the dynamics of the Earth’s climate system. Specifically in Europe, a sustained trend of increasing aridification has been proposed throughout the Pleistocene, which forced a progressive transition from tropical-subtro...
The cranial and mandibular fragments of the medium-sized canid from the Early Pleistocene locality of Taurida cave (about 1.8-1.5 Ma) in Crimea are described and included in the hypodigm of the species Canis etruscus Forsyth Major, 1877, a common member of the Late Villafranchian fauna of the Circum-Mediterranean region. This species is reported fo...
The Vallparadís Section encompasses various geological layers that span a significant chronological range, extending from the latest Early Pleistocene to the early Middle Pleistocene, covering a timeframe from approximately 1.2 to 0.6 Ma. This period holds particular importance as it coincides with a significant climatic transition known as the Ear...
A mandible fragment of Acinonyx pardinensis (Croizet et Jobert, 1828) is described from the Early Pleistocene locality in the Taurida cave (Crimea, Late Villafranchian, about 1.8–1.5 Ma). This is the first discovery of the genus Acinonyx in the Pleistocene of Crimea. Along with other felids, such as Homotherium, Megantereon, Panthera, Lynx, and Pum...
The present work describes for a first time a fused fracture of the metacarpals of the medium-sized felid, Lynx issiodorensis, the putative ancestor of all Eurasian extant lynx species. The studied remains, four metacarpals from the same individual, were unearthed from the Early Pleistocene of the Taurida cave (Crimean Peninsula) and studied throug...
The fossil records of the cheetahs in eastern Asia are is rare, and mostly fragmented,
then and in theconsequence, the evolution of this lineage in eastern Asia remained
remains obscure. In this study, we report the new material from two early Middle
Pleistocene sites, the upper deposits (L2) of Jinyuan Cave (Dalian) and Zhoukoudian
Loc.13 (Beijing...
Fossil badgers of the genus Meles are known in Eurasia since the Late Pliocene but their record is utterly scarce, often represented by isolated remains. This led to taxonomic confusion and hindered phylogenetic reconstruction of the genus. Here we describe in detail all the material attributed to M. thorali from the Early Pleistocene locality of S...
This work presents a comprehensive review of the Quaternary fossil record of hippopotamuses from the Iberian Peninsula, unveiling biogeographical insights of global significance. The results herein presented include the inference of a delayed arrival of Hippopotamus (Hippopotamus antiquus) populations into the Iberian Peninsula compared to other Eu...
(1) Background: despite the fact that nowadays the genus Vulpes Frisch, 1775, is the most diverse among extant Canidae, its fossil record is utterly scarce, especially in the Asian Pliocene. The sparse nature of this record further complicates the reconstruction of the evolutionary scenario to fit these taxa with extant species. The situation seems...
An in-depth study of the Early Pleistocene European remains of Hippopotamus has allowed the first detailed description of the incidence and types of dental alterations related to palaeopathologies and potentially linked to climatic and environmental factors. The results of a long-term qualitative and quantitative assessment highlight the importance...
Western Eurasian Neogene tapirids are an intriguing but poorly known and documented group of mammals. Being mainly represented by scanty and fragmented remains, the Western Eurasian Tapiridae are debated from a systematic point of view. Here, we describe the exquisite tapirid material from the late Pliocene locality of Camp dels Ninots, North-East...
Dietary habits for the cave bear lineage have been previously studied for the Early Pleistocene ursids
from Dmanisi (1.8 Ma) and Orce sites (1.6–1.2 Ma), and their diet was found to be omnivorous with
a substantial consumption of meat and fish in both cases. The present study represents the
chronological continuation of these previous published wor...
Throughout 20 years of fieldwork at the Pliocene deposit of Camp dels Ninots (CN; NE Iberia) an outstanding collection of vegetal, micro- and macrovertebrate remains have been unearthed in an extraordinary state of preservation. The recorded taphocenosis is roughly synchronous with the progressive intensification of glacial dynamics in the Northern...
This study has analyzed the development of the frontal sinus in three different species of genus Eucyon
(Mammalia, Canidae). The frontal sinuses are cavity of the cranium within the frontal bone, whose origin and
evolutionary relevance are still poorly understood and debated even in extant canids. Moreover, no prior study
has taken in consideration...
We present the revision of the fossil hyaenid Plioviverrops faventinus (latest Miocene, Cava Monticino, Brisighella, RA), probably the last and most derived species of the genus Plioviverrops. After the description of the abundant
(and unpublished) cranial and dental material of this species, we focused on the morphological and morphometrical compa...
Pachycrocuta brevirostris is one of the most abundantly recorded carnivoran species during the late Early Pleistocene in European large mammal assemblages. During the last decades controversies regarding its feeding behavior arose. Some researchers advocate for a strictly scavenging behavior and a kleptoparasitic
relationship with sabertoothed cats...
Megantereon was a leopard-sized cat recorded during the Pliocene and Pleistocene of the Old World. Its fragmentary record prompted a hot debate during the last decades between scholars advocating for a single species and others who identified several forms and dispersal events. Here we revise the earliest records of Megantereon in Europe including...
The Vallparadís composite section (VCS) includes the two paleontological sites of Cal Guardiola (CGR) and Vallparadís Estació (EVT), located in the western and eastern banks of the Torrent de Vallparadís, respectively (Terrassa, Catalonia, NE Iberian Peninsula). The whole VCS records a timespan from the late Early to the
earliest Middle Pleistocene...
Large ungulate limb bones are often used as palaeoenvironmental predictors due to their plasticity in adapting to habitat changes and their abundance in the fossil record. It is often sustained that ungulates with cursorial behaviour undergo to an elongation of the distal limb elements in open environments, whereas larger taxa do
not experience thi...
The Deninger’s bear (Ursus deningeri) is an ancestral form of
the cave bear lineage, considered as a chronospecies of Ursus
spelaeus sensu lato. This species inhabited in Iberia from the
late Early Pleistocene, to the Late Middle Pleistocene, including
transitional forms. Compared to the late Pleistocene U. spelaeus,
Iberian U. deningeri remains ar...
Introduction
The phylogenetic and ecological importance of paranasal sinuses in carnivorans was highlighted by several previous authors, mostly in extant species. Nevertheless, no specific study on this feature on extant canids, and no one on fossil representatives of the family, has been published up to now. Here, we analyze for the first time the...
The present work describes the dentognathic remains of Ursus etruscus Cuvier, 1823 from the recently discovered Taurida cave in central Crimea at the north Black Sea area. The bone-bearing layer of Taurida cave corresponds to the Psekupsian Faunal Assemblage of Eastern Europe and to the Late Villafranchian of Western Europe (ca. 1.8–1.5 Ma). Here,...
The study of European Pleistocene Hippopotamus presents unresolved questions and a lack of consensus among specialists being matter of hotly debate in the last decades. The number of taxa, their geographical and chronological distribution and their palaeobiological affinities are still under evaluation. The present work presents the results of comp...
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...
La Vall del Têt és coneguda en el món de l'espeleologia per la gran quantitat de galeries subterrànies que es troben repartides en el complex de cavitats càrstiques format per Gorner, Fullà-Canaletes i Lachambre (Cornellà de Conflent, Occitània, França). Des del moment que un equip d'espeleòlegs i paleontòlegs de la Federació Catalana d’Espeleologi...
Els útims 10 anys d’excavacions al Complex Incarcal del Pleistocè inferior terminal han proporcionat un gran nombre de restes de vertebrats de l’Epivilafranquià. Dos jaciments diferents han sigut excavats durant aquesta tercera etapa d’excavacions: Incarcal-I i Incarcal-V que presenten diferents patrons en l’abundància relativa de grans mamífers. E...
The late Villafranchian is one of the pivotal time-spans in the succession of Pleistocene European faunal assemblages,
setting the bases for the major faunal renewal that characterized the continent during the Epivillafranchian.
Bison is one of the most important and successful large mammals to spread in Europe at the latest
stages of the Early Ple...
The region of Umbria (Central Italy) represents one of the most interesting areas for the study of Mediterranean Plio-Pleistocene mammal faunas due to the occurrence of numerous paleontological deposits. Most of the fossils have been discovered within the Tiberino Basin, which extends across the centre of the territory for ca. 1800 km 2 , and the s...
Late Pleistocene cave lions are one of the most iconic species of Northern Hemisphere
Quaternary taphocoenoses. Despite their often-scarce record in cave environments,
their ubiquitous distribution across Eurasia and North America assemblages attests to
their position as top ice-age predators. Nevertheless, the origins of these former large
felids,...
Camp dels Ninots (Caldes de Malavella, NE Spain) is one of the most remarkable Konservat- Lagerstätte of the European Pliocene. The site is located in la Selva depression, within the Catalan Volcanic Complex. The intense volcanic activity that characterized this area during the Pliocene led to the creation of the Camp dels Ninots maar lake (CN), an...
The study of European hippopotamus (recorded throughout the Quaternary from the Early to the Late Pleistocene) presents several unresolved questions and a lack of consensus among specialists. The number of identified taxa, their geographical and chronological distribution, and the palaeobiological changes in their populations are still hotly debate...
The taxonomy and phylogeny of the small to mid-sized Plio-Pleistocene cervids of Europe, commonly known as Dama-like deer, have been a matter of vast dispute, as specimens referred to this group have been attributed to multiple genera such as: Dama, Pseudodama, Axis, Euraxis, Rusa and Metacervocerus. Here we present a preliminary study of 305 cervi...
Homotherium was one of the most widely distributed felids, both geographically and chronologically. Records of this genus were found from the early Pliocene to the latest Late Pleistocene in Eurasia, Africa and America. Late Pleistocene Eurasian and American fossils, usually considered as representing two different species and well-known thanks to...
Since the pioneering works of Björn Kurtén from the middle of XX century, the Eurasian Early Pleistocene species Ursus etruscus is considered the putative ancestor of both cave and brown bears. However, in the last two decades the remains of the late Early Pleistocene has been in a hotly phylogenetic and taxonomic debate and several authors include...
Homotherium rappresenta uno dei generi di maggior successo del record fossile della famiglia Felidae, con amplissima distribuzione geografica e stratigrafica che spazia dall’Eurasia, all’Africa e all’America, dal Pliocene Inferiore fino alla fine del Pleistocene. Nonostante le popolazioni del Pleistocene Superiore dell’Eurasia e del Nord America si...
Among the so-called big cat species, leopards (Panthera pardus) are one of the most broadly geographically distributed today. Thanks to their versatility, they have a great capacity to adapt to distinct habitats. Nowadays, the geographical range of leopards spans from arid regions of Africa to forested areas in eastern Siberia. During the Middle to...
The late Oligocene genus Proailurus is generally accepted as the earliest member of the family Felidae. Later on, during the Miocene four different felid species are traditionally recognized and included in the paraphyletic genus Pseudaelurus: P. quadridentatus, P. romieviensis, P. lorteti, and P. turnauensis. More recently various authors have ass...
Umbria represents one of the most interesting areas for studying Pleistocene mammal faunas in Italy thanks to the great richness of fossiliferous sites distributed in all its territory. Most of the local faunal assemblages (LFAs) have been found in the Tiberino Basin, which extends over a large portion of the regional territory. Instead, in this wo...
Collecurti (Colfiorito Basin, Italy) is one of the few Early Pleistocene localities in Mediterranean Europe that records the Jaramillo subchron (1.07–0.99 Ma) and the core of the EMPT (Early-Middle Pleistocene Transition). The Collecurti mammal assemblage was selected as the reference for the homonymous Faunal Unit in the Italian large mammal bioch...
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, “...
El Pleistocè inferior fou una època de profunds canvis en les tafocenosis europees probablement forçats pels canvis en la dinàmica orbital de la terra. Durant el vilafranquià les comunitats de grans carnívors mostren una gran diversitat i competència intraespecífica com es exemplificat als jaciments del complex Incarcal i Vallparadís Estació. Aquí...
A new small-sized lynx from Longdan, Gansu Province, Lynx hei sp. nov., is described in this study. The new species displays the characteristic Lynx generic traits, e.g., distinct buccal grooves in the upper canine, presence of anterior groove in the upper canine, absence of the P2, and moderately developed mastoid process, but it is markedly small...
During 2011, an international team of scientists successfully obtained for the first-time paleoDNA data from
different samples of Lynx remains from the Iberian Peninsula. These results showed that these remains
belonged to the species Lynx pardinus, which is, at present, one of the most critically endangered felids. One
of the remains sampled in th...
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...
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 perform...
Among the vertebrates found at Cava Monticino, carnivorans are by far the most abundant of all the large mammals. Five different taxa were recovered: one felid, two hyaenids, one canid, and one mustelid. The small-sized felid remains can be attributed to Felis christoli and seems to represent one of the earliest records of a true member of the genu...
A new Pleistocene hyena den, located into the Réseau Lachambre karstic complex (Têt Valley; Eastern Pyrenees), is here presented. Sylvie 1 is an accessory cavity of the former network with a documented large mammal assemblage putatively corresponding to the Late Pleistocene and mainly dominated by Crocuta spelaea. The majority of the studied bones...
Among macrovertebrates found at Cava Monticino, carnivorans are by far the most numerous in terms of abundance of their records. Five different taxa were recovered: one felid, two hyaenids, one canid and one mustelid. The smallsized felid remains can be attributed to Felis cf. christoli and thus seem to represent one of the earliest records of a tr...
The carnivore guild of the Early Pleistocene site of Dmanisi is among the most diverse of the Early Pleistocene of the entire Old World. It includes 14 carnivoran taxa: Homotherium latidens, Megantereon whitei, Panthera onca georgica, Acinonyx pardinensis, Lynx issiodorensis; Pachycrocuta brevirostris; Canis (Xenocyon) lycaonoides, Canis borjgali,...
Late Early Pleistocene vertebrate assemblages in the Mediterranean area have sparked the interest of the scientific community in the last two decades mainly thanks to the discovery of fossils and/or stone tools testifying to the presence of early Homo. However, our knowledge of most of these assemblages is biased by the lack of well-constrained chr...
The renowned site of Dmanisi in Georgia, southern Caucasus (ca. 1.8 Ma) yielded the earliest direct evidence of hominin presence out of Africa. In this paper, we report on the first record of a large-sized canid from this site, namely dentognathic remains, referable to a young adult individual that displays hypercarnivorous features (e.g., the redu...
The Pliocene record of genus Vulpes Frisch, 1775 in Eurasia is scarce, coming from few sparse locali-ties. The lack of a comprehensive and integrated revision led to the description of numerous different taxa, often only tentatively related to extant species but not with one another. Çalta-1 is an important Pliocene site located in the Anatolian re...
Extant red fox, Vulpes vulpes (Linnaeus, 1757), is a small- to medium-sized mesocarnivorous canid whose earliest records are reported to the early Middle Pleistocene in Europe. Its origin has always been related to the Early Pleistocene European Vulpes alopecoides (Del Campana, 1913), for the numerous comparable morphological and morphometric featu...
The pardel lynx, Lynx pardinus, is considered one of the most threatened living felids, currently distributed in restricted areas of the Iberian Peninsula. The evolutionary history of this medium-sized felid, as well as its relationships with the Middle-Late Pleistocene “cave lynx” from Mediterranean Europe, have fuelled a decades-long debate among...
Bison is one of the most common genera of artiodactyls of the Quaternary. Although during the last century a large number of Bison remains has been discovered and several species have been erected, the evolutionary history of this group remains unclear. Nowadays, it is commonly accepted that Bison is sister to Leptobos, a mid-sized bovine represent...
The latest Early Pleistocene (Epivillafranchian; 1.2-0.8 Ma) is one of the best-known geological periods in the Iberian Peninsula thanks to the abundance of chronologically well-known sites as well as for their species diversity. Among these sites, the most remarkable are: the Vallparadís Section (ca. 1.2-0.6 Ma), the Incarcal complex (ca. 0.8 Ma),...
We describe small-sized specimens of the metailurine felid Dinofelis from a
new Plio-Pleistocene site in North Africa. Dinofelis is a genus of saber-toothed cats mainly
recorded from East and South Africa with numerous leopard to jaguar-sized species. The
described specimens, clearly smaller than all the other African Dinofelis, resemble
isolated r...
The dispersal of the genus Hippopotamus from Africa to Europe in the Early Pleistocene has been widely discussed in the last decades. Most authors propose a single entry of forms similar to the African species Hippopotamus gorgops, named H. antiquus upon entering Europe. However, other authors propose a first entry of forms similar to the African t...