A new species of Megacricetodon from the Early-Middle Miocene of Czech Republic and its importance for the understanding of the earliest evolution and dispersal of the genus in Europe

ABSTRACT

The sudden appearance of modern cricetids in Europe during the Early Miocene was one of the most significant mammalian events of European Neogene. A characteristic representative of this mammalian turnover was the genus Megacricetodon that quickly became major components of the rodent faunas across Europe. Here, we review the fossil record of this genus from the Early-Middle Miocene (MN4-MN5) localities of Czech Republic, the key area for the understanding the earliest history of this genus in central Europe. We provide an age refinement of the localities under study, especially in the context of new data from the Northern Alpine Foreland Basins. A detailed analysis of the available material revealed a presence of Megacricetodon grueneri sp. nov., described here from Dolnice 3 (MN4a/b). The oldest record of Megacricetodon comes from Ořechov (~late MN4a) and marks the first occurrence of the genus in central Europe. We discuss and propose the most likely scenarios for the earliest phylogeny and dispersal of Megacricetodon into central and western Europe that were strongly influenced by major tectonic processes in the Pannonian and Pre-Alpine areas having a major impact on the development of terrestrial ecosystems and the composition of faunas. Zoobank: http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:D2154E84-BD58-4AF9-80C7-8E8AEED7517D

KEYWORDS:

• Small mammals
• Cricetidae
• Megacricetodon grueneri sp. nov
• MN4-MN5
• palaeobiogeography

Acknowledgments

We thank the editor G. Dyke for the help during the submission process. We deeply appreciate the suggestions of V.D. Crespo and an anonymous referee that have substantially improved this manuscript. We are grateful to B. Ekrt (National Museum in Prague) for the facilities to study the collections and the SEM-images. We acknowledge Z. Heřmanová and Jana Bruthansová (both National Museum in Prague) for the CT-scan. We also want to thank C. Paradela for her technical support in the acquisition and reconstruction of the micro CT scans, performed at the Service of Non-Destructive Techniques of the MNCN-CSIC. We thank Patricia M. Carro-Rodríguez (GEODESPAL, UCM) her help. AO was granted by a SYNTHESYS Project (CZ-TAF-7044), SČ was financed by institutional support RVO67985831 of the Institute of Geology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and OF was supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic (DKRVO 2019-2023/2.V.e, National Museum, 00023272).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2022.2134783.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the (CZ-TAF-7044) http://www.synthesys.info/ which is financed by European Community Research Infrastructure Action under the FP7 Integrating Activities Programme, by institutional support RVO67985831 of the Institute of Geology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic (DKRVO 2019-2023/2.V.e, National Museum, 00023272).