The species Myosorex meini Jammot, 1977 was a nomen nudum because it was named in an unpublished dissertation. The species is here revised using the new material found in the Late Pliocene fissure ...infillings of Almenara-Casablanca 1 and 4 (province of Castelló, East of Spain) and from the Tollo de Chiclana localities 1B, 3, 10, and 10B in the Guadix Basin (province of Granada, Southeastern Spain). A new diagnosis is given with some differential characters to identify the species within the family. The species definitively belongs to the genus Myosorex. A definitive new allocation for the genus into the subfamily Crocidosoricinae is proposed as an alternative to the classical assignment to the Crocidurinae. This is justified by available data coming from different fields of research, such as genetics, reproductive biology, morphology, and paleontology. Within the Crocidosoricinae, the tribe Myosoricini Kretzoi, 1965 is resurrected, and two other ones, the Crocidosoricini and the Oligosoricini, are redefined. From the paleobiogeographical point of view, the occurrence of the African genus Myosorex constitutes a new striking evidence of the faunal exchange between Eurasia and Africa that took place during the Messinian Salinity Crisis.
Hüsing et al. (2010: Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology 291, 167–179) made an approximation to the age of the closure of the Betic Seaway through the Guadix Basin during the late ...Miocene, on the basis of integrated paleontological (foraminifera and micromammals) and magnetostratigraphic data from the marine-continental section of La Lancha. They provide very interesting information that contributes to understand the chronology of the marine to continental transition in the basin, but we would like to comment some inaccuracies in the interpretation of the age of the oldest continental levels of the studied section. Moreover, we discuss several recently described late Miocene continental faunas from the Guadix Basin, such as Negratín-1 and Rambla de Chimeneas-3, which were not considered by Hüsing et al. for their interpretations. Finally, we review the age of the site of Salinas, originally assigned to MN12 and discussed by Hüsing et al., but which had already been reconsidered by other authors who concluded that the existence of middle Turolian mammal faunas in this basin cannot be demonstrated.
The fossil shrews (Soricidae, Lipotyphla, Mammalia) from the Pliocene continental deposits of Tollo de Chiclana (Guadix Basin, southern Spain) are described. Remains of Asoriculus gibberodon, ...Blarinoides aliciae, Petenyia hungarica, Paenelimnoecus pannonicus, Myosorex meini, and an indeterminated species of Soricidae have been recognized. With the exception of A. gibberodon, these species are very uncommon in the south of the Iberian Peninsula; in fact, this finding represents the first record of Petenyia, Blarinoides, Paenelimnoecus, and Myosorex in the Guadix Basin. The changes in the abundance of Soricidae in the studied levels indicate wet and warm climatic conditions during the late Ruscinian and early Villanyian, and a decrease in the temperature and precipitation in the late Villanyian.
In the continental deposits of the area of Tollo de Chiclana (Guadix Basin, south-eastern Spain), several new fossiliferous Pliocene localities yield a rich rodent and insectivore fauna. Of the ...various rodent families that occur in these sites, Muridae are the most abundant and diversified. Eleven species belonging to seven different genera (Occitanomys, Stephanomys, Castillomys, Paraethomys, Apodemus, Rhagapodemus, and Micromys) have been recognized. In this paper we describe the Muridae from these localities, which have great biostratigraphical and paleoecological interest. The presence of certain taxa and the changes in the abundance of the various taxonomic groups indicate a decrease in temperature and a change in the biotopes from Late Ruscinian through Middle Villafranchian in the area of Tollo de Chiclana.
The genus Stephanomys (Muridae, Rodentia) is one of the most common elements in the late Miocene to Early Pleistocene mammal faunas from the Ibero-Occitan region. Its geographic distribution is ...limited to this area with only two mentions in the late Miocene of Italy (de Giuli, 1989) and Algeria (Coiffait et al., 1985). The genus has been subject of numerous studies, some of them suggesting different interpretations on the phylogenetic relationships between the various described species (Gmelig-Meyling and Michaux, 1973; Cordy, 1978; Adrover, 1986; Bachelet and Castillo-Ruiz, 1990; Aguilar et al., 1993). The most extensive and significant study of the genus is the Ph.D. dissertation of Cordy (1976), who studied in detail several samples of Stephanomys, analyzed the changes observed in successive populations and defined four species (S. medius, S. michauxi, S. thaleri and S. progressus), which are considered as nomina nuda because this work was never published. Only one of these species, S. thaleri from the French locality of Seynes, was validated later by López-Martinez et al. (1998).
In the continental deposits of the area of Tollo de Chiclana (Guadix Basin, south-eastern Spain), several new fossiliferous Pliocene localities yield a rich rodent and insectivore fauna. Of the ...various rodent families that occur in these sites, Muridae are the most abundant and diversified. Eleven species belonging to seven different genera (Occitanomys, Stephanomys, Castillomys, Paraethomys, Apodemus, Rhagapodemus, and Micromys) have been recognized. In this paper we describe the Muridae from these localities, which have great biostratigraphical and paleoecological interest. The presence of certain taxa and the changes in the abundance of the various taxonomic groups indicate a decrease in temperature and a change in the biotopes from Late Ruscinian through Middle Villafranchian in the area of Tollo de Chiclana.
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