Gerhard Storch

Tachypteron franzeni n. gen., n. sp., earliest emballonurid bat from the Middle Eocene of Messel (Mammalia, Chiroptera)

A new genus and species of emballonurid microchiropteran,Tachypteron franzeni, is described from the early Middle Eocene (MP 11) of Grube Messel, near Darmstadt, Germany. The holotype is extraordinarily well-preserved. It is the first unequivocal representative of an extant clade among Messel bats and the oldest unequivocal record of Emballonuridae. The flight apparatus ofT. franzeni is highly specialized for a rapid and constant flight style. The proportions of the strikingly narrow wing, the outline of the flight membranes and external ear, the morphology of the postcranial skeleton, and the relative cochlea size ofT. franzeni and extantTaphozous species are almost identical, while the dentition ofT. franzeni is distinguished by more plesiomorphic features.Tachypteron and the fairly diverse Paleogene record of emballonurids from France, consisting mainly of isolated teeth, document the earliest radiation known from an extant bat family and suggest a rather intense pre-Middle Eocene diversification of emballonurids.KurzfassungEs wird eine neue Gattung und Art der Microchiropteren-Familie Emballonuridae,Tachypteron franzeni, aus dem unteren Mittel-Eozän (MP 11) der Grube Messel bei Darmstadt, Hessen, beschrieben. Der Holotypus ist außergewöhnlich gut erhalten.T. franzeni ist der erste unzweideutige Angehörige einer modernen Familie in der Messeler Fledermausfauna und zugleich der älteste unzweideutige Nachweis der Familie Emballonuridae. Der Flugapparat vonT. franzeni ist extrem spezialisiert für einen schnellen und stetigen Flug. Die Proportionen des auffallend schmalen Flügels, der Umriss der Flughäute und des äußeren Ohrs, die Morphologie des post-kranialen Skeletts sowie die relative Cochlea-Größe vonT. franzeni und rezenten Arten der GattungTaphozous sind nahezu identisch. Dagegen unterscheidet sichT. franzeni durch einige plesiomorphe Gebißmerkmale.T. franzeni und die recht vielgestaltigen Nachweise paläogener Emballonuriden aus Frankreich, meistens Einzelzähne, belegen die früheste von einer rezenten Fledermausfamilie bekannte Radiation und weisen auf ziemlich intensive evolutive Prozesse der Emballonuriden vor dern Mittel-Eozän hin.

Paleoecology of early middle Eocene bats from Messel, FRG. aspects of flight, feeding and echolocation

By their diversified flight apparatus Messel bats occupied specific flight niches similar to those of extant tropical bats. The small Palaeochiropteryx tupaiodon is considered to be most specialized for hunting close to the ground and for hovering inside dense vegetation. Contrarily, Hassianycteris spp. most likely were high and fast flyers in the open space. The analysis of gut contents proves that Palaeochiropteryx spp. exclusively fed on small moths and caddis flies, i.e. slow and low flying insects. For P. tupaiodon this confirms the foraging strategy independently from wing morphology. Hassianycteris spp. preyed mainly on beetles or other insects with thick cuticules. Inner ears of Messel microbats are less specialized compared to those of recent species. Especially P. tupaiodon shows no acoustical specialization with regard to its hunting habitat. Thus, we assume that during the early evolution of bats the development of different flight styles and wing shapes preceded acoustical refinements of the ...

New murids (Mammalia: Rodentia) from the Lufeng hominoid locality, late Miocene of China

ABSTRACT The Lufeng hominoid locality, China, yields two murid taxa, Progonomys yunnanensis, sp. nov., and Yunomys wui, gen. et sp. nov. P. yunnanensis is more advanced than P. debruijni from the Dhok Pathan Formation of Pakistan and slightly more advanced than P. cathalai from the Vallesian of Europe. It suggests a middle Baodean age (=middle Turolian, MN 12 equivalent) and a somewhat younger age than 8 Ma for the Lufeng fauna. Yunomys wui is closely related to the Karnimata-Parapelomys complex of Neogene south Asian murids. Both murids have affinities with subtropical elements ranging from the Mediterranean region through East Africa and across southern Asia.

First micromammals (Mammalia, Soricomorpha) from the Vallesian (Miocene) of Eppelsheim, Rheinhessen (Germany)

The first micromammals are described from Eppelsheim, one of the classic localities of the Dinotheriensande (sands withDeinotherium) of Rheinhessen. The Dinotheriensande are the earliest deposits known of the Rhine river south of the Rhenian Slate Mountains (“Rheinisches Schiefergebirge”).Plesiosorex roosi n. sp. is described as new. The evolutionary stage ofPlesiororex roosi andCrusafontina kormosi suggests that the Eppelsheim fauna is somewhat older than Dorn-Dürkheim 1 (MN 11) but younger than Can Llobateres 1, Rudabanya, and Hammerschmiede (MN 9).KurzfassungVon Eppelsheim, der klassischen Lokalität der obermiozänen Dinotheriensande Rheinhessens, werden die ersten Kleinsäugerfunde beschrieben. Bei den Dinotheriensanden handelt es sich um die ältesten bekannten Rheinsedimente südlich des Rheinischen Schiefergebirges.Plesiosorex roosi n. sp. wird neu beschrieben. Das evolutive Stadium vonPlesiosorex roosi undCrusafontina kormosi lassen für die Eppelsheimfauna auf ein höheres Alter als Dorn-Dürkheim 1 (MN 11) und ein geringeres Alter als Can Llobateres 1, Rudabanya und Hammerschmiede (MN 9) schließen.

EXTRAORDINARILY PRESERVED SPECIMEN OF THE OLDEST KNOWN GLIRID FROM THE MIDDLE EOCENE OF MESSEL (RODENTIA)

Abstract Gliridae is one of the oldest extant families of rodents with a fossil record dating back as far as the early Eocene. Eogliravus wildi, previously known from some isolated teeth from the European early Eocene, represents the oldest and most primitive glirid. The early middle Eocene oil shales of Messel, Germany, yielded an extraordinarily preserved specimen of E. wildi, exhibiting the virtually complete and articulated skeleton, the outline of the pelage, and gut contents consisting of various vegetable matter. E. wildi descended most probably from European small-sized microparamyine ischyromyids. Its protrogomorphous zygomasseteric structure indicates that the myomorphy and hystricomorphy of the extant dormice evolved convergently to other rodent clades. The postcranial skeleton compares well with extant glirids. The postcranial morphology, proportions of the limb segments, bushy tail, and small body size indicate a gracile and swift animal moving among tree branches. The very large orbits suggest nocturnal activity. E. wildi was well adapted to an arboreal or scrub environment, the major habitat of todays dormice.

Neogene Murinae of Ukraine (Mammalia, Rodentia)

Presented here is the taxonomy and biochronological sequence of Ukrainian Murinae, based on remains from 21 fossil sites. The succession covers the period from the mid Sarmatian through Kuyalnikian Eastern Paratethys Stages, here correlated with the Late Vallesian through Late Villanyian European Mammal Units (European Mammal Neogene Zones MN 10-17).Progonomys cathalai appeared first, followed byHansdebruijnia perpusilla and twoApodemus “lineages” of different size (MN 11).Castromys nadachovskii n. sp. has a single record of mid Turolian age. The generaRhagapodemus andMicromys appeared in the Late Turolian, andOccitanomys (Rhodomys) andOrientalomys during Ruscinian time. Paleozoogeographic relations of Ukrainian Murinae are mainly with the European Meditarranean region, Central and East Asia, and Anatolia. Faunas from the eastern Mediterranean region (e. g., Maramena, Greece) appear to be most suitable for regional biochronological correlations.

FIRST NEOGENE MARSUPIAL FROM CHINA

The fossil record of marsupials in Asia and our understanding of their relationships are extremely poor. The extant mammal fauna of Asia does not include marsupials and not a single Cenozoic fossil was known from this continent until 1984. Only a dozen cheek teeth, discovered during the last two decades and coming from only a handful of widely scattered fossil localities, represent Cenozoic marsupials on the vast Asian continent (Fig. 1). We here describe the first fossil marsupial from China and from East Asia as a whole. The new find expands the known geographical range of the taxon considerably and together with Siamoperadectes from Thailand represent the only known Neogene marsupials from Asia. The retention of plesiomorphic dental characters, unknown from Tertiary North American and European marsupials, suggests an origin of the Chinese taxon from late Cretaceous North American stock, and thus the existence of its lineage in obscurity in East Asia through the Paleogene. The first discovery of a Cenozoic Asian marsupial, an upper molar, was from the late Eocene of the Zaysan Basin, Kazakhstan (Gabunia et al., 1984, 1985; Benton, 1985). Together with an additional upper molar from the same geological formation, it was later described as the new taxon Asiadidelphis zaissanense (Gabunia et al., 1990). A second species, Asiadidelphis tjutkovae, was described from somewhat younger, early Oligocene strata of the Zaysan Basin on the basis of three associated upper molars and Asiadidelphis was referred to the subfamily Herpetotheriinae of the family Didelphidae (Emry et al., 1995). An Asiadidelphis-like opossum, represented by more than 10 cheek teeth, was listed among the mammals from the middle Eocene Shanghuang fauna of Liyang County, Jiangsu Province, China (Qi et al., 1991, 1996). An upper molar from the middle Miocene of Li Basin, northern Thailand, was described as Siamoperadectes minutus, a new taxon of the didelphid subfamily Peradectinae (Ducrocq et al., 1992). Mein and Ginsburg (1987) described a second upper molar from the same locality. A new, still unnamed, herpetotheriine didelphid, represented by four isolated and partly fragmentary upper and lower molars from the earlyto-middle Eocene Kartal Formation near Ankara, Turkey, was announced in 1996 (Kappelman et al., 1996). The same formation also produced an upper molar of peculiar morphology which was provisionally regarded as belonging to a marsupial (Maas et al., 1998). Fossil sites 20 km southwest of Hongzhehu Lake, Sihong County, Jiangsu Province, eastern China (Fig. 1), have yielded a diverse mammalian fauna, the Sihong Local Fauna, that includes about 50 species of insectivores, bats, rodents, lagomorphs, carnivores, proboscideans, perissodactyls, artiodactyls, cetaceans, and primates (Qiu and Qiu, 1995). Biochronologic evidence, mainly from rodents, places the Sihong Local Fauna in the Shanwangian East Asian Land Mammal Age and correlative with European land mammal zone MN 4 (late early Miocene). The new marsupial fossil, an isolated second upper molar, was found at the Songlinzhuang locality of the Sihong complex. The lacustrine beds at Songlinzhuang are rich in large and small mammals indicative of a forested, well-watered paleoenvironment (Li et al., 1983). The sciurids, for example, include various species of flying squirrels, tree squirrels, and chipmunks (Qiu and Liu, 1986). Marsupial characters of the molar (Fig. 2) include a broad, cuspate stylar shelf, an enlarged metacone well separated from the smaller paracone, and a relatively low width to length ratio. The combination of a linear centrocrista, weak development of stylar cusps, and the lack of conules strongly supports its allocation to the didelphid subfamily Peradectinae. The presence of protoconal cingula and a wide posterior cingulum are highly unusual for any Cenozoic didelphid, however, and warrant the description of a new genus and species. The alleged European Paleocene peradectine Peradectes marandati was re-identified as an adapisoriculid eutherian by Gheerbrant (1991). The new Chinese marsupial differs from eutherian groups that have marsupial-like molars such as adapisoriculids in the transversely less expanded lingual region (protocone lobe), reduction of the paracone, relatively shorter preparacrista lacking a carnassial notch, and reduced conules.

Un nouveauSaturninia (Nyctitheriidae, Lipotyphla, Mammalia) de l’assise OK (Oberkohle, MP 14) du bassin lignitifère du Geiseltal (Eocène moyen supérieur d’Allemagne)

RésuméL’assise Oberkohle (OK; Eocène moyen supérieur, MP 14) des lignites du Geiseltal (Allemagne orientale) a livré une mandibule sub-complète d’un insectivore Nyctitheriidae. Cette pièce est décrite et comparée aux formes connues de l’Eocène moyen et supérieur d’Europe. Ses caractères font apparaître son originalité et justifient sa désignation commeSaturninia carbonum n. sp. Cette espèce semble reliable à la forme plus récente (MP 16)Saturninia grandis, connue de Grisolles dans l’Est du Bassin de Paris.KurzfassungAus dem Oberkohle-Horizont (OK; oberes Mittel-Eozän, MP 14) der Braunkohlen des Geiseltals (Ostdeutschland) liegt ein fast vollständig bezahntes Unterkiefer-Fragment eines nyctitheriiden Insektivoren vor. Dieses Exemplar wird beschrieben, mit Taxa des europäischen Mittel- und Ober-Eozäns verglichen und danach auf eine neue Art,Saturninia carbonum n. sp., bezogen. Vermutlich besteht eine Entwicklungslinie von der neuen Art zur jüngeren (MP 16)Saturninia grandis, die aus Grisolles im westlichen Pariser Becken bekannt ist.