The shrew pleads ‘not guilty’ to the mole’s murder: comment on Bennàsar et al. (2015)

Abstract

The damage on the surface of a mole fossil humerus from the early Pleistocene site of Sima del Elefante (Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain) has been recently interpreted as bite marks of the extinct shrew Beremendia fissidens. The present work considers this attribution not evident, and it stresses some doubts on the feasibility of a shrew leaving bite marks on a bone using its incisors, as well as the physical and ethological inconsistencies that it would imply.

Keywords:

• Beremendia
• Atapuerca
• taphonomy
• venomous mammal

Acknowledgements

Special thanks go to the two reviewers who helped improving the original manuscript and Editors-in-Chief Ewa Krzeminska, Peter Königshof, Gilles Scarguel and Andrzej Kaim (Acta Zoologica Cracoviensia, Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments, Geobios, and Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, respectively), Tim Palmer (Executive Officer of the Palaeontological Association, Palaeontologia Electronica) and Reinhard Ziegler (Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart) for their kind help to reproduce the images included in Figure 1.