Maria Prat-Vericat

• Master in Paleobiology
• PhD Student at Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont

In this study, we review and analyze one of the most scarcely recorded carnivorans of the European Quaternary, the leopard (Panthera pardus), focusing on its presence in the Pyrenean Mountain range. Our data reveal a progressive increase in both the number of records and the body mass of leopards throughout the Pleistocene, beginning with the earli...

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 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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

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,...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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),...

Grotte de la Carrière is one of the secondary caves with paleontological record within the Réseau Lachambre karstic complex, an important network located in the Têt Valley at Villefranche-de-Conflent (Occitaine, France). After the discovery of dozens of cave bear remains in 2012, four systematical excavations in different parts of the cave allowed...