Rodent faunas from the Paleogene of south-east Serbia

Abstract

Seven new rodent faunas are described from the Pčinja and Babušnica-Koritnica basins of south-east Serbia. The geology of the Tertiary deposits in the Pčinja and Koritnica-Babušnica basins of south-east Serbia is briefly reviewed. The fossil content of the new vertebrate localities is listed, and an inventory of the rodent associations is presented. The rodent associations are late Eocene-early Oligocene in age, interpreted on biostratigraphical grounds. These are the first rodent faunas of that age from the Balkan area, an important palaeogeographic location between Europe and Asia. The Muridae, with the subfamilies Pseudocricetodontinae, Paracricetodontinae, Pappocricetodontinae, Melissiodontinae and ?Spalacinae, are dominant with eight genera, four of which are new. The diversity of the Melissiodontinae and Paracricetodontinae in the faunas suggests that these subfamilies originated in this region. The bi-lophodont cheek teeth occurring in the Oligocene assemblages are identified as the first record of the Diatomyidae outside of Asia. In light of the large amount of new data, the palaeogeographic setting and faunal turnover of the Eocene-Oligocene is discussed.

New data on the earliest European ruminant (Mammalia, Artiodactyla): A revision of the fossil mandible from Rusce in the Pčinja basin (late Eocene, Southeastern Serbia)

“…Although samples from Rusce did not yield any faunal remains, an assemblage from the nearby site of Buštranje, located northwest of Rusce, showed a late Eocene age for the Vražja Crkva Fm. New data from the region of Buštranje confirm a late Eocene age for the Sveta Gora Fm as well (de Bruijn et al, 2018).…”

“…It is filled with poorly exposed Eocene and few Oligocene sediments (up to 1500 m thick), which overlie Proterozoic crystalline rocks, Proterozoic and Palaeozoic granites, and Senonian rocks at places. As summarized by Dimitrijević and Dimitrijević (1981), Dimitrijević (1997), andde Bruijn et al (2018), the basin fill consists of the following units. It begins with a unit (up to 750 m thick) of subaerially deposited Lepčince pyroclastics (tuffs and tuffites), found only along the eastern border of the basin.…”

“…However, no members of this fauna survived the Eocene-Oligocene boundary (Mennecart et al, 2018). While data on Eocene micromammals from the Balkan Peninsula are becoming more and more extensive (Marković et al, 2013de Bruijn et al, 2018;van der Weerd et al, 2018), ruminants are currently known only by one mandible found in a borehole in Sladun, Bulgaria (late Bartonian or early Priabonian; Mennecart et al, 2018). The recent description of this oldest ruminant from Europe (Bachitherium thracensis Mennecart, Geraads, Spassov, and Zagorchev, 2018) led to a new scenario for the pattern of dispersal events between Asia and Europe (Mennecart et al, 2018).…”

“…He attributed the specimen to the moschid species Micromeryx flourensianus Lartet, 1851, mainly based on the small size of the specimen. However, the site is located within the Pčinja basin, well known for its Eocene, and possibly Oligocene, sedimentary fillings (de Bruijn et al, 2018). Thus, the mandible from Rusce most certainly comes from pre-Neogene deposits.…”

Deperetomys (Rodentia, Muridae) from the Oligocene of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina

“…During the course of our studies of the Paleogene rodents from the Balkans, it became clear that these assemblages contain numerous Asian components (de Bruijn et al 2018;Marković et al 2018b;Wessels et al 2018). This circumstance led to the comparison of our material with genera from all over Eurasia containing large species with a double anterocone in the M1 and a deep forward directed sinus in the M3.…”