A rich community of Felidae (Mammalia, Carnivora) from the late Miocene (Turolian, MN 13) site of Las Casiones (Villalba Baja, Teruel, Spain)

ABSTRACT

Several new fossil remains of Felidae from the late Miocene (Turolian age, MN 13, local zone M2) locality of Las Casiones (near the village of Villalba Baja, Teruel, Spain) are studied in the present paper. This felid community includes the machairodontines Amphimachairodus giganteus, Paramachaerodus orientalis, and Metailurus major, and the felines Pristifelis attica and a small, undetermined species, previously unknown in the late Miocene. With this high diversity of felids, the environment of Las Casiones was probably relatively vegetated, with shrubs and trees that allowed smaller felid species to avoid dangerous encounters with the larger ones.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study is part of the research projects CGL2008-00034 and CGL2008-05813-C02-01 (Dirección General de Investigación, Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Spain). M.J.S. is a contracted researcher within the “Ramón y Cajal” program (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, reference RYC2007-00128), M.D.P. is a contracted researcher within the “Juan de la Cierva” program (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, reference RYC2007-00128), and G.S. is predoctoral FPI fellow of the project CGL2008-00034. M.J.S. and J.M. belong to the research group UCM-BSCH-910607. Excavations at Las Casiones, preparation of fossils, and palaeontological research have been possible thanks to the support of the Dirección General de Patrimonio Cultural, Gobierno de Aragón (Spain). The authors thank the family Herrero (owners of the property where Las Casiones site is located), J. Esteban, M. Marco, and all members and volunteers from excavation and fossil preparation teams. This study is one of the palaeontological research projects subsidized by the Departamento de Educación, Cultura y Deporte, Dirección General de Investigación, Innovación y Desarrollo (Research Group E-62, FOCONTUR), and IAF, Gobierno de Aragón. We also thank D. Kovatchev (National Museum of Natural History, Sofia, Bulgaria) and S. Roussiakis (Department of Historical Geology and Palaeontology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) for providing us with some images of postcranial elements of M. anceps and M. parvulus. We also thank J. Ebbestad, curator in the Evolutionsmuseet of Uppsala Universitet, Sweden, for the access to the material of Metailurus major from China. We thank the editor and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the manuscript and their constructive suggestions.

Handling editor: Blaire Van Valkenburgh