The bovids (Artiodactyla) from the Lower Pleistocene locality of Karnezeika (Southern Greece)

ABSTRACT

More than 3000 fossil vertebrate specimens have been unearthed from the new Lower Pleistocene locality of Karnezeika, Peloponnese, Greece. The vast majority of the material (~90%) represents bovids, and their systematic study is provided herein. The bovid assemblage consists of four taxa. A significant portion of the collected bovid material belongs to a small sized gazelle, attributed to Gazella bouvrainae, and to the large Rupicaprini Gallogoral meneghinii. A relatively small sized form of Gazellospira torticornis has been recorded as well, and in addition the scarce dental material belonging to an unspecified Caprini form is mentioned as Caprini gen. et sp. indet. This combination of taxa is typical for the Middle Villafranchian of Greece (2.6–1.8 Ma).

KEYWORDS:

• Early pleistocene
• Villafranchian
• Greece
• Bovidae
• systematics

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the quarrying company Marmyk and its owner Thanasis Iliopoulos, firstly for extracting the fossiliferous block from the quarry and keeping it safely in the quarry facilities for years and secondly for providing their equipment to lift and carry the block. Christos Rigos who worked as the quarry geologist, is thanked for identifying the fossil bone material, for making sure that the block would be safely extracted and for informing us about the fossils. Finally we would like to thank the University of Patras for providing a small grant that covered the transportation expenses to the University of Patras.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

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