Indarctos and other Caniformia fossils of G.E. Lewis’ YPM collection from the Siwaliks

ABSTRACT

Material of Indarctos and other Caniformia fossils from the Yale Peabody Museum G.E. Lewis Siwalik expedition collections from Pakistan and northern India are described herein. The M2 of a newly described cranium of Indarctos from the Dhok Pathan Zone is extremely similar to the holotype of Indarctos salmontanus, and both materials are similar to European I. atticus, thus both the holotype of I. ‘salmontanus’ and the new material from the Siwaliks can be assigned to I. atticus. ‘Indarctos’ punjabiensis from the Dhok Pathan Zone is markedly different from I. atticus and other known species of Indarctos in having a much shorter M2 talon and probably represents another genus. A hemicyonid from the Chinji Zone is reported in the Siwaliks for the first time. Plesiogulo from the Dhok Pathan Zone is identified as Plesiogulo aff. crassa, differing slightly from Chinese Plesiogulo crassa, P. brachygnathus and all North American species. The earliest member of the small clawed otter lineage, Amblonyx barryi sp. nov., from the Tatrot Zone in the Siwaliks already shows several mandibular and dentition traits characteristic of the genus. An amphicyonid (aff. Magericyon sp.), a gulonine mustelid (aff. Iberictis sp.), and the lutrine mustelid Sivaonyx gandakasensis are also reported.

KEYWORDS:

• G.E. Lewis collection
• Siwaliks
• Ursidae
• Indarctos
• Plesiogulo
• Amblonyx

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to D. L. Brinkman (YPM), J. Meng, R. O’Leary and J. Galkin (AMNH), and J. Chen (IVPP) for the access to the fossil materials under their care. We are also grateful to Dr. Alberto Valenciano for useful discussion on mustelid part.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by awards to QJ from the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. XDA20070203 and XDB26000000), Key Frontier Science Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant Nos. QYZDY-SSW-DQC-22 and GJHZ1885), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41430102, 41872001, 41872005 and 41772018) and China Scholarship Council, and by the Frick Fund of the Division of Paleontology at AMNH.