Lartetium africanum (Lavocat, 1961) (Eulipotyphla · Soricidae) from Beni-Mellal (Morocco), the oldest African shrew: new descriptions, palaeoenvironment and comments on biochronological context

Abstract

Additional specimens of the poorly known African shrew Lartetium africanum (Lavocat, 1961) are described and complete our knowledge of this tiny animal. The results of this study justify the elevation of material originally described as a subspecies to the species rank. Soricids are hitherto unknown in older African localities. Like many other soricids, L. africanum lived in a rather humid habitat, close to a body of freshwater, as testified by the intercalations of travertines with reeds in the lacustrine lenses that yielded the fauna.However, the presence of associated vertebrate taxa also attest to more open environments in the surroundings and a tropical climate. Various hypotheses on the date of arrival of this taxon in Africa have been proposed since migration routes between Eurasia and Afro-Arabia were not always open during the Middle Miocene and also because magnetostratigraphic data are now known and can be compared. These hypotheses are discussed here. Recent advances in our knowledge of the palaeogeography and the comparison of L. africanum with western European Lartetium taxa suggest that Beni-Mellal could be older than previously proposed, possibly early Middle Miocene.

Old-timers and newcomers: The shrews and heterosoricids from the Ribesalbes-Alcora Basin (East of Spain)

“…Ulmensia can be discarded as well because in this genus the posterolabial edge of the protoconid forms a crest that contacts to the middle of the labial cingulum (Hugueney and Maridet, 2011). The comparison with the genus Lartetium is more problematic: some authors suggest it is a synonym of Oligosorex and propose its revision (Klietmann et al, 2014), whereas some others recognize both genera as closely related (Hugueney et al, 2015). Even so we can rule out this genus because Lartetium has a well-developed hypocone in the P4 and M1 (Hugueney et al, 2015), and an absent or poorly developed entocristid (Ziegler, 1989;Doukas and Van den Hoek Ostende, 2006).…”