This paper presents a morphological description and contextualization of dhole remains from the Late Pleistocene site (MIS 3) of Equi (Fivizzano, Massa-Carrara, Italy). The site was excavated in the first decades of the twentieth century, and the palaeontological remains are housed in the Paleontological Museum of the University of Florence. In Europe, the occurrence of dhole remains is spread over the continent and ranges chronologically from the early Middle Pleistocene to the Holocene. The current knowledge allows definition of the northern limit range of this carnivore, which never crossed the 51st parallel. The ethology of extant populations allows us to make inferences about its behaviour, with special regard to the occurrence of other large carnivores at the same site, such as Panthera spelaea and Panthera pardus, based on mutual segregation related to the environment and prey availability.
Fossil lynxes are quite common in the Plio-Pleistocene mammal assemblages of Europe. Despite of this abundant record, the phylogeny of the genus Lynx and the relationships among the different recorded species are far from being resolved. The most controversial species of this group is Lynx pardinus spelaeus or Lynx spelaeus according to different scholars, recorded in the Middle and Late Pleistocene of France and Italy. Here, we describe unpublished remains of fossil lynxes from different layers of the Valdemino cave (Middle to Late Pleistocene, Savona, Italy). The reported evidence suggests that the lynx from Valdemino represents probably the most ancient well-documented material of L. spelaeus in Europe further reinforcing the idea of progressive size reduction and acquisition of more trenchant dentition in the European lineages of lynx (L. pardinus and L. spelaeus) during the Middle to Late Pleistocene.
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