When moles became diggers: Tegulariscaptor gen. nov., from the early Oligocene of south Germany, and the evolution of talpid fossoriality

Abstract

The systematics of Geotrypus is among the most debated within Talpidae, but the recent development of quantitative methods for shape analyses allows us to provide a thorough reconsideration of Geotrypus spp. In the present study, we perform a systematic revision of the species Geotrypus minor from the early Oligocene of Germany using two-dimensional geometric morphometrics on the humerus, and cladistic analyses using two different character matrices. Our results suggest a distinct generic allocation for this species based on its unique humeral shape. Cladistic analyses reveal that G. minor has closer phylogenetic relationships with urotrichine shrew-moles than with other Geotrypus species or highly fossorial moles. Quantitative methods applied in this study support qualitative observations and fully justify a new generic allocation. In light of these results, Tegulariscaptor gen. nov. is proposed to encompass the material previously assigned to G. minor.

http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:8A839F1E-0EC8-4799-B3AE-1A4E54A95F0E

Keywords:

• Talpidae
• Geotrypus
• geometric morphometrics
• cladistics
• humerus
• Oligocene

Acknowledgements

We are particularly grateful to Dr Reinhard Ziegler of the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde, Stuttgart, Germany; Prof. Barbara Rzebik-Kowalska of ISEZ-PAN, Krakow, Poland; and Dr Shin-Ichiro Kawada of the Tsukuba Natural History Museum, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan; to Dr Christiane Bastos-Silvera of the Museu de Historia Natural, Lisboa, Portugal; Prof. Zhuding Qiu of IVPP, Beijing, China; Paula Jenkins, Roberto Portella and Emma Bernard of NHMUK, London, UK; Dr Emmanuel Robert of Lyon Universitè, Lyon, France; Dr Gertrud Rössner of BSPG, Munich, Germany; Dr Ursula Gölich of NHMW, Vienna, Austria; Dr Jim Dines of LACM, Los Angeles, USA; Prof. Patricia Holroyd of UCMP, Berkeley, USA; and Prof. Yukimitzu Tomida of Tokyo NHM, Tsukuba, Japan. They each allowed us to visit their collections and made our visits comfortable and pleasant. We want to thank Prof. Stephen Wroe and Dr Christopher Goatley for proofreading the manuscript. We are grateful to two anonymous referees for their comments which significantly improved the quality of the manuscript. GS received support from the SYNTHESYS Project (http://www.synthesys. info), which is financed by the European Community Research Infrastructure Action under the FP7 ‘Capacities’ Program (GB-TAF-2095 and AT-TAF-3415).

Supplemental material

Supplemental material for this article can be accessed at:https://doi.org/10.1080/14772019.2017.1329235

Additional information

Funding

SYNTHESYS project [AT-TAF-3415,GB-TAF-2095].