The article presents the palaeobiogeographical and palaeoecological results of the
examinations of eleven Vallesian and Turolian shrew faunae found in the Pannonian
Basin. While in the MN 9-ll Zones of the Late Miocene in the greater part of Europe a
subtropical clirnate was dominant, the Soricidae and other vertebrate fauna elements in
the Pannonian Basin's northern and western areas which had become lands reflect
much more extreme conditions; forests and grassland plains alternated with each other,
and in places desert tracts may have appeared. Probably the wind-sheltering effect of
the Alps and Carpathians, which by the MN 9 Zone already had profiles of high
mountain ranges, created the drier and, from the point-of-view of temperature, more
extreme climate. This is supported by the fact that the migrations and evolutionary
connections of the Soricidae faunae show the Pannonian Basin to have been elosed to
the north and west, and open to the south. In the MN 10-11 Zones the parts of
Transdanubia which had become island sometimes became isolated from the eastern
mainland of the Pannonian Basin
