Muridae from the late Miocene site of Venta del Moro (Eastern Spain)

Abstract

Murids are usually the dominant faunas of the late Miocene and early Pliocene micromammal assemblages. The present work deals with the murid faunas of the well-known late Miocene locality of Venta del Moro, comprising over 2700 molars ascribed to the taxa Apodemus gorafensis, Occitanomys alcalai, Paraethomys meini and Stephanomys dubari. This list differs from those of previous studies by the presence of A. gorafensis instead of A. gudrunae. The presence of A. gudrunae in younger localities than Venta del Moro implies that both species, considered ancestor and descendant, coexisted for some time. In addition, the analysis of such an extensive collection has allowed us to check the variability of the studied species in great detail, such as the development of the longitudinal connections of O. alcalai, to a greater extent than previously described. Finally, we discuss the biometrical changes of the lineages of Paraethomys in Southern Europe from MN13 to MN15, and hypothesize about the mechanisms behind these variations in size.

Keywords:

• Muridae
• late Miocene
• Venta del Moro
• Spain
• biometry
• character displacement

Acknowledgments

The field work in Venta del Moro was supported, from 1995 on, by the Conselleria de Cultura of the Valencian Government with the permission of the Ministerio de Fomento and the Company ADIF, of the Spanish Government. We thank the efficient work of the technicians of the SCSIE of the UV, P. Gómez, E. Navarro and A.J. Ibáñez. We thank the help, hospitality and comments of Drs. Wilma Wessels, Hans de Bruijn, Lars van den Hoek Ostende and Reinier van Zelst during the stays of SMP in Utrecht and Leiden. This investigation was carried out thanks to the Prometeo Project of the Secretariat for Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation from Ecuador. We thank the comments and suggestions by the reviewer Dr Simone Colombero and editor Dr Gareth Dyke.