Dragon bones from the heavens: European explorations and early palaeontology in Zanda Basin of Tibet, retracing type locality of Qurliqnoria hundesiensis and Hipparion (Plesiohipparion) zandaense

ABSTRACT

More than 200 years since its initial exploration, Zanda Basin, a high-elevation (3,800–4,500 m above sea), intermountain basin at the foothills of the Himalaya, is the site to some of the earliest fossil discoveries, including the holotype of extinct Tibetan antelope, Qurliqnoria hundesiensis. These fossils also hold the record, in 1823, as the first vertebrate fossils from Tibet in the scientific literature. Unfortunately, these tantalising early records have become all but forgotten for more than 100 years due to a lack of information about their localities. Our recent explorations in the 2000s revive the interests in Zanda Basin and establish a unique Zanda mammal assemblage important in the evolution of Tibetan Neogene mammals. In this paper, we retrace the expedition routes by early explorers and attempt to establish, to the extent possible, the type locality of two key mammals in the Zanda fauna: Q. hundesiensis and Hipparion (Plesiohipparion) zandaense. We highlight the pivotal role Zanda fossil mammals play in the early discourse of mountain building, climate change, and mammal adaptation in high Himalaya, more than a hundred years before Chinese palaeontologists made a similar argument upon the discovery of three-toed horses, in the 1980s, at different basins in Tibet.

KEYWORDS:

• Qurliqnoria
• Plesiohipparion
• Zanda Basin
• Cenozoic
• Tibet
• history of exploration

Acknowledgments

XW has benefited from conversations with Prof. Qiu Zhanxiang regarding early records of Zanda fossils. We greatly appreciate team members and drivers, both Chinese and Tibetan, of our Zanda expeditions, without whose dedication this project would not be possible. We would also like to thank P. Brewer, and N. Gabriel for access to the fossil mammal collection at the Natural History Museum, London. Ms. Bruna Lago-Fazolo has kindly assisted in granting permission to publish Captain Hearsey’s watercolours in the collection of the British Library. We greatly appreciate the comments and suggestions by three anonymous reviewers. We also thank Editor-in-Chief Gareth Dyke for his encouragement to submit this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for fieldwork and travel are provided by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB26030304), CAS/SAFEA International Partnership Program for Creative Research Teams, Chinese National Natural Science Foundation (nos. 40702004 to Q.L., 40730210 to T.D., 49872011, 40128004), Chinese Academy of Science Outstanding Overseas Scholar Fund (KL205208), National Science Foundation (US) (EAR-0446699, 0444073, 0958704, 1227212 to X.W.), and National Geographic Society (no. W22-08 to Q.L.).