
Lars van den Hoek OstendeNaturalis Biodiversity Center | NCB · Department of Geology
Lars van den Hoek Ostende
Ph.D.
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January 2002 - present
Publications
Publications (208)
Spalacinae are an unusual component of the fossil record around the world with a limited geographical distribution. The revisited section of Afşar includes one of the richest collections of Spalacinae in Turkey. From Afşar 1, near the base of the section we recovered Pliospalax cf. macoveii while in Afşar 2, at the top of the section we distinguish...
The Late Miocene (Messinian) Gargano “Terre Rosse” in southern Italy has yielded a diverse and peculiar insular vertebrate fauna, comprising an array of endemic taxa, including forms characterized by extreme sizes and unique morphologies. We here present a new testudinid from this insular assemblage. The material comprises few shell remains (both c...
Central Europe is an area of high diversity for the Talpidae (Eulipotyphla, Mammalia) during the Late Miocene. The assemblages from Slovakia (Borský Svätý Jur, Krásno, Pezinok, Šalgovce, Studienka, Triblavina) are no exception with their abundant material representing eleven species. The uropsiline Desmanella is represented by D . rietscheli and D...
The families Erinaceidae and Dimylidae are represented in the late Miocene localities of Slovakia (Borský Svätý Jur, Krásno, Pezinok, Šalgovce, Studienka, and Triblavina) by at least six hedgehog species — ‘Schizogalerix’ voesendorfensis (Rabeder, 1973); Schizogalerix cf. S. moedlingensis (Rabeder, 1973); Lantanotherium sanmigueli Villalta and Crus...
Studying the dental pattern of micromammals has proven to be a valuable tool in classifying and identifying extinct species, but problems may arise when dental morphology changes with wear. This holds particularly true for the high-crowned rodents, such as the Spalacinae. X-ray microtomography provides new opportunities to document the changes in d...
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...
The Catalan locality of Can Llobateres 1 (early Vallesian, MN9) shows a remarkably rich diversity just prior to the mid-Vallesian crisis, including 23 species of Carnivora. Similarity maps using the Raup-Crick index and covering the Middle to Late Miocene (16–5.3 Ma) show that the origin of this carnivoran chronofauna lies to the north of the Iberi...
Fossil apes from the eastern Mediterranean are central to the debate on African ape and human (hominine) origins. Current research places them either as hominines, as hominins (humans and our fossil relatives) or as stem hominids, no more closely related to hominines than to pongines (orangutans and their fossil relatives). Here we show, based on o...
The NOW database of fossil mammals came to be through a confluence of several initiatives spanning multiple decades. The first public version of NOW database was released in 1996 and the first Advisory Board was established the year after. Originally, NOW stood for Neogene of the Old World but with the gradual expansion of the database the acronym...
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...
The NOW database of fossil mammals was released in 1996, slightly more than 25 years ago. Initially the acronym stood for ‘Neogene Old World’, but as the database later expanded to include data for Cenozoic mammals worldwide it was changed to ‘New and Old Worlds’. NOW is a comprehensive research database and its creation approximately coincided wit...
Extinction is part of life. Some groups persist longer than others, as is confirmed in an analysis of the small mammal data in the NOW database. Longevities are shorter in Rodentia than in Eulipotyphla and Lagomorpha. At the family level, the shortest longevities both for genera and species lies with the most diverse groups, whereas families with l...
This volume presents an array of different case studies which take as primary material data sourced from the NOW (‘New and Old Worlds’) database of fossil mammals. The NOW database was one of the very first large paleobiological databases, and since 1996 it has been expanded from including mainly Neogene European land mammals to cover the entire Ce...
The new micromammal site of Beydere 3 represents a typical Anatolian MN3 fauna in the high diversification and abundance of Eumyarion. Notably, two Eumyarion species are new; combined, they make up almost half of the assemblage. While Eumyarion beyderensis sp. nov. shows simple morphology in upper molars, Eumyarion aegeaniensis sp. nov. shows a mor...
The Lower-Upper Pleistocene sedimentary record of the Baklan Basin, a long-lived continental half-graben basin in SW Turkey, is characterized by shallow lacustrine and palustrine deposits. The paleoenvironmental changes recorded in the basin succession allow for a multiproxy approach in reconstructing the paleoclimatic, paleoecological, and paleobi...
The Fossil Lake deposits of the Green River Formation of Wyoming, a remarkable early Eocene Lagerstätte (51.98 ±0.35 Ma), have produced nearly 30 bat fossils over the last 50 years. However, diversity has thus far been limited to only two bat species. Here, we describe a new species of Icaronycteris based on two articulated skeletons discovered in...
The Afşar section, situated in the Dombayova graben in western Turkey, is one of the key localities for the study of the Pliocene of Anatolia. Two fossiliferous layers yielded micromammal assemblages, including various cricetine and arvicoline species. These include the species Mimomys cf. gracilis, Pliomys sp., Arvicolinae gen. sp. and the criceti...
A new erinaceine, Sonidolestes wendusui gen. et sp. nov., from the Early Miocene of Inner Mongolia in China, is described here. The tooth morphology of this new taxon is quite unique. Especially, the enlarged p4 has a regressed paraconid and lacks the metaconid and the paralophid, unlike any known member of the Erinaceinae. Sonidolestes wendusui pr...
The study of fossil small mammals (micromammals) has proven to be a valuable tool for the dating of terrestrial sediments and reconstructing palaeoenvironments. Their abundance in the fossil record, in numerous localities around the world, provide more than enough data, which combined with other proxies allow us to identify environmental changes an...
The Kargil Formation in the region of Ladakh (northern India) is known for its late Oligocene mammal fauna of both large mammals and rodents. New excavation in the area yielded a maxillary fragment of an insectivore with three premolars and two roots of a canine. The fossil record of the insectivores on the Indian subcontinent is as yet scanty. Bas...
Mortality curves of extinct rodents can be reconstructed by using relative wear calculated from the amount of dentine exposed. MicroCT scanning of molars of the extinct Eomyid genus Ligerimys shows that this Wear Index increases gradually with wear; this means that wear classes can serve as a proxy for age and can therefore be used to reconstruct m...
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...
A computed tomography scan of a travertine slab from the Karacalar Silver Travertine Quarry (Afyonkarahisar Province, Turkey) revealed the presence of an encased partial cranium, partial mandible and three vertebrae. 3D reconstruction of the fossil helped identifying it as Amphicyon giganteus. As the travertine caps a section correlated to MN7/8, t...
The study of the phylogenetic relations between the species stands among the major topics of the natural sciences. In order to do that, paleontologists use the morphological similarity between the fossils. Studying the dental pattern has proven to be a valuable tool towards that goal, but problems may arise when dental morphology changes with wear....
The new fossil micromammal assemblage of Çapak represents a mixture of both Anatolian and European faunal elements. The locality is very important for understanding faunal evolution in the less well-known time interval at the end of the early Miocene of western Anatolia. In Çapak, nine species of rodents and one species of ochotonid were encountere...
Over the last half a century, a massive amount of data has been gathered on Neogene rodents of Europe. Using the
NOW database, we analysed changes in generic diversity during the Neogene and the beginning of the Quaternary. Studies as
the present are useful for exploring major changes in diversity, but the pitfalls are many and varied. Whereas the...
The Dardanelles region has formed a key gateway connecting the Eastern Paratethys and the Aegean/Mediterranean since the late Miocene. Its sedimentary sequences contain crucial information about connectivity and tectonics but so far lack unambiguous age constraints. Only a few Miocene marine episodes have been documented and fossil assemblages are...
The Vallès-Penedès Basin in Catalonia (NE Spain) forms a biogeographically important connection between central Europe and the Iberian Peninsula. Whereas this is well documented for the late middle and early late Miocene, the early Miocene sequence has received far less attention. New excavations yielded micromammal assemblages from the Ramblian an...
The mammal locality of Gördes is only known from its test sample, as it has been subsequently destroyed. This small sample yielded a surprisingly rich assemblage, with five rodent species, four species of insectivore and a bat. Based on the rodent
contents, the assemblage is assigned to Anatolian mammal zone D, equivalent to MN 3. One of the rodent...
Two new small mammal assemblages from the abandoned Harami lignite mine, as an addition to previously known Harami assemblages, provide a better insight in the palaeoenvironments in Anatolia in local Biozone C (MN 2, early Miocene). Based on the new material, the Eumyarion assemblages are considered to consist of three, rather than two species, in...
Terrestrial fossil records from the SW Anatolian basins are crucial both for regional correlations and palaeoenvironmental reconstructions. By reassessing biostratigraphic constraints and incorporating new fossil data, we calibrated and reconstructed the late Neogene and Quaternary palaeoenvironments within a regional palaeogeographical framework....
An old test sample from the Sabuncubeli Formation (Manisa, Turkey) yielded an interesting faunule, which, however, up to now had never been described. In Bornova 183, now inaccessible, five species of micromammal were encountered: the hamsters Eumyarion aff. montanus, E. intercentralis and Cricetodon kasapligili, the squirrel Palaeosciurus fissurae...
Unlike the rodents of the local zone C (MN 2) fauna of Gökler, the faunal list of the insectivores shows little surprises. The fauna is dominated by the gymnure Galerix saratji and the enigmatic talpid Suleimania ruemkae, both present in such numbers that for the first time the anterior dentition could be reconstructed. In the case of Galerix, thes...
The objective of this presentation is to make public for the first time the new Pliocene vertebrate locality of Afsar in the Sandıklı basin in Southwestern Turkey.
Terrestrial fossil records from the SW Anatolian basins are crucial both for regional correlations and palaeoenvironmental reconstructions. By reassessing biostratigraphic constraints and incorporating new fossil data, we calibrated and reconstructed the late Neogene and Quaternary palaeoenvironments within a regional palaeogeographic framework.
Cu...
Few Quaternary herpetofaunas have been recovered from The Netherlands. Among these, the one coming from the early Pleistocene site of the Russel-Tiglia-Egypte pit near Tegelen is of particular interest , because it is the type locality of the recently described, last western European palaeobatrachid anuran, Palaeobatrachus eurydices. The large numb...
The knowledge of the Neogene and Quaternary fossil record of the insectivores, the small mammals included in the order Eulipotyphla, has been greatly improved in the last two decades. This improvement, linked to a refinement on the dating of many Spanish fossil localities, allows tracking the evolution of the insectivore assemblages during the last...
Insular taxa, such as the late Miocene giant erinaceid Deinogalerix and the insular hominin Homo floresiensis, display a surprisingly primitive placement in cladistic analyses of their respective groups. This has led to speculations of early dispersal onto islands, not corroborated by biogeographical evidence. Insular evolution is notorious for vas...
The recent paper by Elitez and Yaltırak (2016) proposes a revised Neogene stratigraphy that attempts to reconstruct tectonostratigraphic evolutionof the Çameli Basin area of the SW Anatolia (Fig.1), a region intensely studied by The Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) and The Geological Survey of Turkey (MTA) over past decades. Both TPAO and MTA p...
The rich and relatively diverse fossil mammalian assemblage from Gökler is of special importance for understanding of faunal evolution in Central Anatolia. Large mammals were not recovered, but insectivores and rodents are abundant. The assemblage of rodents is studied in detail and comprises mainly diversified cricetids. Dormice are abundant, but...
Once perceived as a continent-wide extinction event, doubts have been raised as to the severity and extent of the Vallesian Crisis. In this paper, we use the high-resolution late Aragonian to middle Turolian micromammal record from both the coastal Vallès-Penedès Basin and inland Calatayud-Teruel Complex to determine geographic extent of this late...
Çorakyerler Hominoid Site preserves exceptional fossil material of Anatolian Late Miocene since the beginning of 2000. Besides its unique hominoid record, the characterizing taxa for Corakyerler include also a large component of bovids, as well as diverse carnivores, equids and girafds. The micromammal fauna of Çorakyerler has received relatively l...
The small mammal assemblages from Alto de Ballester 1 and 2 in the Rubielos de Mora basin represent a unique faunal assemblage
from the late early Miocene (Ramblian, MN 3). Together, the assemblages yielded five species of rodents (Peridyromys murinus, P. aff.
murinus, P. aquatilis, Pseudotheridomys aff. fejfari and cf. Steneofiber depereti), and n...
For the first time in 30 years the Kor & Bot collection is surveyed and interpreted in its entirety (i.e. all known 2174 pieces) on the occasion of the 65th Kor & Bot expedition in 2015. The locality nomenclature within the Oosterschelde is restructured and clarified, the taxonomy and the anatomical information are corrected and complemented where...
The systematics of Geotrypus is among the most debated within Talpidae, but the recent development of quantitative methods for shape analyses allows us to provide a thorough reconsideration of Geotrypus spp. In the present study, we perform a systematic revision of the species Geotrypus minor from the early Oligocene of Germany using two-dimensiona...
The Valles-Penedes Basin (Catalonia, Spain) is classical area for the study of Miocene land mammal faunas. Nevertheless, the early Miocene part of the record has deserved little attention as compared to younger intervals. Most notably, the small mammals of this age have not been described in detail, consequently hampering the correlation of the Val...
Over the last decade, important progress has been made in the study of the mammal successions from Hungary and Romania. A critical review of the taxonomy of the published small mammals is provided herein, as well as some new data and an overview of the accompanying vertebrate fauna (excluding fishes) in their stratigraphic context. In addition, the...
Sedimentary basins in Anatolia preserve a rich record of Neogene terrestrial environments at the crossroads between Asia and Europe. Deciphering the geological evolution of these basins is essential for understanding how this fine record came to be preserved. In a reciprocal fashion, the fossil record allows for correlating between basins and for r...
The fossil record from the Carpathian area plays a key role for the understanding of the processes leading to the faunal interchanges between western Europe and Asia Minor during the late part of the Middle Miocene. Important mammal successions are now availablefrom the Central Paratethys, especially Hungary and Romania. Here, we present the curren...
Disarticulated remains of palaeobatrachids coming from the early Pleistocene (Gelasian) of Tegelen (The
Netherlands) are here described and referred to the new species Palaeobatrachus eurydices. The new species has been included in the first comprehensive phylogenetic analysis considering all known species of the genus Palaeobatrachus and was found...
The “Lignite Deposit Exploration in Turkey” project, conducted by a group of German and Turkish geologists, led to the discovery of the “Paşalar Hominoid Site” in 1969. The first excavations in Paşalar were carried out by H. Tobien and his team and the preliminary results of the faunal list, which included 47 micro and macromammalian taxa, were pub...
Corakyerler Hominoid Site has produced one of the largest and most diverse faunas from the late Miocene of Anatolia since the beginning of 2000. Besides its unique Hominoid record, the characterizing taxa for Çorakyerler include also a large component of bovids, as well as diverse carnivores and other ungulates. However, over 3000 fossil specimen a...
The eastern Mediterranean has yielded some textbook examples of insular evolution among large mammals such as the world's smallest hippopotamus and mammoth. By contrast, gigantism among small mammals is limited, with the exception of the early Pleistocene murid Kritimys from Crete. The large body size of insular rodents can be related to an energet...
The fossil record of the Iberian insectivores forms a subset of those found in central Europe. Comparison of the late early to early late Miocene record of the two areas shows that, particularly during the late Early Miocene, central European taxa have transient occurrences in Spain. Most taxa appear earlier and survive longer in central Europe. A...
Vegetation and climate changes during the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene in SW Turkey – Response to Comments by Elitez et al., Quaternary Research, 84, pp. 448–456 - Volume 85 Issue 3 - Gonzalo Jiménez-Moreno, Hülya Alçiçek, Mehmet Cihat Alçiçek, Lars van den Hoek Ostende, Frank P. Wesselingh
We present an updated taxonomy and faunal distribution of the micromammal fossil record from the Aragonian and Lower Vallesian of the Calatayud-Montalbán Basin. The analysed record includes the orders Rodentia, Eulipotyphla, and Lagomorpha. The pattern of species turnover shows seven major faunal events, which are correlated with major climate chan...
Pollen analysis was done on lacustrine sedimentary sequences dated by micromammals as late Pliocene–early Pleistocene that outcrop in two Neogene graben basins from SW Turkey. This study shows vegetation changes from steppe-like to more forested environments, very similar to the cyclic oscillations related to late Pleistocene glacial–interglacial c...