The last European varanid: demise and extinction of monitor lizards (Squamata, Varanidae) from Europe

Remains of a varanid lizard from the middle Pleistocene of the Tourkobounia 5 locality near Athens, Greece are described. The new material comprises cranial elements only (one maxilla, one dentary, and one tooth) and is attributed to Varanus, the genus to which all European Neogene varanid occurrences have been assigned. Previously, the youngest undisputed varanid from Europe had been recovered from upper Pliocene sediments. The new Greek fossils therefore constitute the youngest records of this clade from the continent. Despite being fragmentary, this new material enhances our understanding of the cranial anatomy of the last European monitor lizards and is clearly not referable to the extant Varanus griseus or Varanus niloticus, the only species that could be taken into consideration on a present-day geographic basis. However, these fossils could represent a survivor of the monitor lizards of Asian origin that inhabited Europe during the Neogene

On the systematic value of Rana chinensis Osbeck

Volume: 13Start Page: 67End Page: 8

Beitr\ue4ge zur Osteologie einiger exotischer Raniden

Volume: 48Start Page: 172End Page: 18

Middle Miocene remains of Alytes (Anura, Alytidae) as an example of the unrecognized value of fossil fragments for evolutionary morphology studies

Fragmentary anuran remains (an ilium and radioulna) from the middle Miocene of Moratilla 2 (Teruel Province, Spain) are identified, using qualitative characters and geometric morphometrics, as belonging to a new unnamed species of midwife toad, of the extant anuran genus Alytes (Alytidae). The Moratilla 2 fossils of Alytes are dated to ca. 16-17 Ma, prior to the early splits that resulted in the current Alytes diversification. Our biometric study of the fossil radioulnar fragment, an element usually considered uninformative, has revealed convergent adaptive trends in forearm locomotor performance within the genus. This finding would have remained hidden otherwise, because neither molecular approaches nor the comparative osteology of living forms would have detected it. A model for the evolutionary history of midwife toads is proposed, as a case example of how molecular phylogeographic results can be combined with morphological and paleontological studies at the genus level. Historical models of morphological adaptation at low taxonomic and anatomical levels now seem feasible using quantitative reconstructions of fossil fragments. In the future, these models can be compared with independently derived data based on environmental history. © 2014 by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.This research was supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación grants CGL 2008-03881 and CGL2011-28877 to B.S. and by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad grant CGL2012-37279 to M.B.Peer Reviewe