Large apeomyine rodents (Mammalia, Eomyidae) from the early Miocene of Echzell, Germany

Abstract

The dental material described in this paper was collected from fossiliferous ash layers of the Vogelsberg volcanic complex at Echzell, Germany. It consists of 32 teeth of a new large Apeomys species, Apeomys oldrichi n. sp., and 19 teeth of Megapeomys lindsayi Fejfar, Rummel and Tomida. Both species are extremely rare faunal elements in the early Miocene of Europe. Apeomys oldrichi n. sp. is the largest known Apeomys species, and occurs in a number of MN 3 – 4 sites in southern Germany and Czech Republic. Megapeomys lindsayi, the largest Eurasian apeomyine, was described on the basis of a single lower premolar. Herein both lower and upper cheek teeth as well as the lower deciduous premolar are described for the first time. In comparison with related populations from other localities, the evolutionary stage of the two apeomyine species clearly indicates a middle Orleanian age (MN 4) for Echzell which concurs with previous studies.

http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:1F9E49BE-C4B6-4597-A116-234E13D86BA9

Keywords:

• Biostratigraphy
• Cenozoic
• Neogene
• Rodentia
• systematics
• tooth morphology

Acknowledgment

We thank G. Gruber and O. Sandrock (HLMD) for the loan of the Echzell specimens, the editor G. Dyke and the reviewers for improving the paper and S. Slater (NRM) for improving the English language.