First occurrence of Sivatherium Falconer and Cautley, 1836 (Mammalia, Ruminantia, Giraffidae) in the Iberian Peninsula

ABSTRACT

The sivatherine clade includes some of the largest giraffids and emerged during the late Miocene. Sivatherium hendeyi, the earliest known species of the Sivatherium genus, was first described from the lower Pliocene of Langebaanweg (5.15 ± 0.1 Ma, Cape Province, South Africa). Here we describe the first possible occurrence of Sivatherium from western Europe from the lower Pliocene (MN14) of Puerto de la Cadena (4.9 Ma, Murcia, Spain). The new material consists of dental and postcranial remains. The Puerto de la Cadena Sivatherium, together with the presence of Macaca sp. and Debruijnimys sp., indicates a connection between African and European faunas during the early Pliocene and a possible relationship between Sivatherium and the stem Iberian sivatherines Decennatherium and Birgerbohlinia.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

MR thanks the Stimulus of Scientific Employment, Individual Support – 2018 Call grant by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portugal, CEECIND/02199/2018) and GeoBioTec. We want to thank P. Perez and S. Fraile (MNCN-CSIC, Madrid, Spain), L. Celia and D. DeMiguel (ICP, Barcelona, Spain), P. Montoya and Ana García Froner (MUVHN, Valencia, Spain), J. Galkin, J. Meng and E. Westwig (AMNH; New York, U.S.A.), P. Brewer and S. Pappa (NHMUK, London, U.K.), C. Argot and S. Peigne (MNHN, Paris, France) and their respective home institutions for giving us access to their giraffid fossil collections. We thank E. Cantero, B. Gómez and P. Gutierrez for the preparation of the BAT10 fossils. We also deeply thank the reviewers and editors of this paper for increasing significantly the value and relevance this study.

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Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.