Prieto, Jérôme

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Hystrix record from Taşkinpaşa (Upper Miocene, Central Anatolia)

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An International Journal  of Palaeontology and GeobiologySeries A /Reihe AMitteilungen der Bayerischen Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und GeologieMünchen 2013ZittelianaZitteliana An International Journal of Palaeontology and Geobiology Series A/Reihe A 5353Zitteliana A 53 (2013) 179Short communicationHystrix record from Taşkinpaşa (Upper Miocene, Central Anatolia) Jérôme PrietoDepartment for Earth and Environmental Sciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich & Bavarian State Collections for Palaeontology and Geology, Richard-Wagner-Strasse 10, D-80333 Munich, GermanyE-mail: j.prieto@lrz.uni-muenchen.de Zitteliana A 53, 179 – 180 München, 31.12.2013 Manuscript received 21.11.2013; revision accepted 06.12.2013 ISSN 1612 - 412XKey words: Hystricidae, porcupine, TurkeySchüsselwörter: Hystricidae , Stachelschwein, TürkeiA single tooth from Taşkinpaşa (Central Anatolia, Turkey) discovered in the large collection of beaver fossils housed at the Bavarian State collection for Palaeontologie and Geologie (BSPG) in Munich, Germany, was erroneously assigned to Steneofiber cf. jaegeri, but in fact belongs to a porcupine. Because of striking similarities in overall morphol-ogy, discriminating isolated fossil teeth of rodents in the family Castoridae from teeth of members of the Hystricidae may be challenging, especially when dealing with the hystricidean genus Anchitheromys (e.g., Van Weers 1993; von Koenigswald & Mörs 2001, and reference therein). The tooth from Turkey (Fig. 1b,c) is clearly broader at its occlusal surface than at its crown basis. This feature allows to exclude affinities of the fossil with Anchitheromys. Moreover, the fundamental mor-phological pattern of the upper molars is relatively uniform in the family Hystricidae (Van Weers 1993), precisely as in the specimen from Taşkinpaşa. Final-ly, the teeth of the Miocene beaver(s) Chalicomys/Steneofiber (e.g., Casanovas-Vilar & Alba 2011 for taxomic information of these genera) are consider-ably smaller and hypsodont, and thus cannot be confused with the specimen discussed in this paper. According to the entry in the field book, the speci-men was collected by T. Oettinger in 1957, and was a surface discovery on the tuff mine dump, Taşkinpaşa, 16 km sud-sudeast of Ürgüp. This description con-curs with the data provided by Şenyürek (1954), who studied the fossil locality Taşkinpaşa. The locality is well known among paleontologists, due primarily to the occurrence of well-preserved remains of the Gi-raffidae Samotherium. The tooth (Fig. 1) belongs to a relatively old in-dividual, and has a rounded outline, as it is often the case at this stage of wear (Fistani et al. 1997). Figure 1: Hystrix (H.) cf. primigenia (Wagner, 1848) from Taşkinpaşa. Right M1 or M2 (SNSB-BSPG 1957 I 336); (a) occlusal view; (b) lingual view; (c) labial view.Zitteliana A 53 (2013) 180ReferencesCasanovas-Vilar I, Alba DM. 2011. The never-ending problem of Miocene beaver taxonomy. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 56, 217–220.Fistani AB, Pavlakis PP, Symeonidisi N. 1997. First discovery of Hystrix primigenia Wagner from the Late Miocene to Early Pliocene deposits of Shahinova, Berat, South-West Albania. An-nalen des Naturhistorischen Museums in Wien 98 A, 155–172.Kaya T, Mayda S, Kostopoulos DS, Alcicek MC, Merceron G, Tan A, Karakutuk S, Giesler A, Scott RS. 2012. Şerefköy-2, a new Late Miocene mammal locality from the Yatăgan Formation, Mŭgla, SW Turkey. Comptes Rendus Palevol 11, 5–12.Koenigswald W von, Mörs T. 2001. The enamel microstructure of Anchitheriomys (Rodentia, Mammalia) in comparison with that of other beavers and of porcupines. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 74, 601–612.Şen S. 1994. Les gisements du Miocène supérieur de Kemiklitepe, Turquie: 5. Rongeurs, Tubulidentés et Chalicothères. Bulletins du Musée national d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris 16, 97–11.Şen S. 2001. Early Pliocene porcupine (Mammalia, Rodentia) from Perpignan, France: a new systematic study. Geodiversitas 32, 303–312.Şenyürek MS. 1954. A study of the remains of Samotherium found at Taşkinpaşa. Ankara Universitesi Dil ve Tahir-Cografya Fakül-tesi Dergisi 12, 1–32.Ünay E, de Bruijn H. 1984. On some neogene rodent assemblages from both sides of the Dardanelles, Turkey. Newsletter in Stratigraphy 13, 119–132.Van Weers DJ. 1993. Teeth morphology and taxonomy of the Mi-ocene rodent Anchitheriomys suevicus (Schlosser, 1884), with notes on the family Hystricidae. Proceedings of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen 96, 81–89.Van Weers DJ, Rook L. 2003. Turolian and Ruscinian porcupines (genus Hystrix, Rodentia) from Europe, Asia and North Africa. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 77, 95–113.Because of the outline and morphology of the oc-clusal surface, P4 and M3 can be ruled out. Distinc-tion between the first and second upper molars is impossible in this case. Regarding the size (10.11 x 8.92 mm at occlusal surface), the molar is slightly smaller than the M1 and M2 of Hystrix (H.) depereti from Perpignan, and falls within the size range of H. (H.) primigenia from Pikermi (Şen 2001: fig. 5). More-over, the hypoflexus starts at 8.6 mm from the crown basis, which is closer to H. (H.) primigenia (7–8 mm in Pikermi and Hadji Dimovo) than to Hystrix (H.) de-pereti (>10mm, Şen 2001). However, it is impossible to safely assign the tooth to either of these two or yet another species with confidence.The fossil locality Taşkinpaşa has been dated as Late Miocene, MN 12, and the presence of H. (H.) primigenia-like fossils corroborate this dating (strati-graphical range of the species in SE Europe and Asia is MN11/12–MN13; see Weers & Rook 2003). During the Miocene and early Pliocene, the porpucines are represented in Anatolia with both H. (H.) primigenia and Hystrix (H.) depereti; the former has been recor-ded for Eski Bayirköy (Upper Miocene, problematic collection, see Kaya et al. 2012), Gülpinar (MN 12), Kemiklitepe A/B (MN 11/12) and Şerefköy-1 (MN 12) (Ünay & Bruijn 1984, Şen 1994, Van Weers & Rook 2003), while the latter form belongs to the fauna of Ҫobanpinar, Sinap 42, MN 12 (Van Weers & Rook 2003). AcknowledgmentsGertrud Rößner (Munich) is thanked for making the specimen available for study and constructive comments on an earlier draft of this note.

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Hystrix record from Taşkinpaşa (Upper Miocene, Central Anatolia)

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