Late Miocene Sciuridae (Mammalia, Rodentia) from Anatolia, Turkey

ABSTRACT

Isolated cheek teeth of Sciuridae (Rodentia, Mammalia) from nine late Miocene localities in central Anatolia (Turkey) are described. The teeth represent at least 12 different species, five of which belong to the ground squirrel genus Tamias, two to the ground squirrel genus Spermophilinus, one to the flying squirrel genus Hylopetes, and two to the flying squirrel genus Pliopetaurista. One species, Tamias anatoliensis (type locality Altıntaş 1), is new. An unknown genus and species of giant tree or ground squirrel is represented by one tooth. Two teeth probably form the oldest record in western Eurasia of the tree squirrel genus Sciurus. Seven of the localities that yielded Sciuridae are lacustrine deposits, two are karst fissure fills. Their estimated ages range from MN 9 to MN 13. The majority of late Miocene Sciuridae from Anatolia show affinities with European sciurids of the same period.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We are grateful to the General Directorate of the MTA, Ankara, Turkey, for the many years of support of the informal collaboration with members of Utrecht University, aiming to better understand the stratigraphy of the continental basins of Anatolia. Without the local knowledge and dedication of E. Űnay and G. Saraç this project would have been impossible. We thank M. R. Dawson (Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, U.S.A.), J. Hír (Municipal Museum, Pásztó, Hungary), P. Jenkins (Natural History Museum, London, U.K.), F. Kaya (University of Helsinki, Finland), L. W. van den Hoek Ostende (Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, The Netherlands), and Z. Qiu (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China) for making material of fossil and extant Sciuridae under their care available to us. We thank L .J. Flynn (Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.) and an anonymous reviewer of this paper for their useful comments. We gratefully acknowledge the help we received from K. Hordijk (Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, The Netherlands). Marc A. ter Haar (Huizen, The Netherlands) and A. S. Tesakov (Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia) contributed to this study by translating Russian literature. The SEM photographs were made by T. Bouten (Department of Earth Sciences) and the plates were composed by T. Markus (Faculty of Geosciences) (both at Utrecht University, The Netherlands).

Handling editor: Thomas Martin/