Abstract
The Miocene sands of the Swiss Jura Mountains, long exploited in quarries for the construction industry, have yielded abundant fossil remains of large mammals. Among Deinotheriidae (Proboscidea), two species, Prodeinotherium bavaricum and Deinotherium giganteum, had previously been identified in the Delémont valley, but never described. A third species, Deinotherium levius, from the locality of Charmoille in Ajoie, is reported herein for the first time in Switzerland. These occurrences are dated from the late early to the early late Miocene, correlating to the European Mammal biozones MN4 to MN9. The study is completed by a discussion on the palaeobiogeography of dinotheres at European scale.
Competing Interest Statement
The authors have declared no competing interest.
Abbreviations
- APD
- anteroposterior diameter,
- dex.
- right,
- H
- height,
- i
- lower incisors,
- L
- lenth,
- m/M
- lower and upper molars,
- MJSN
- Jurassica Museum (formerly Musée jurassien des Science naturelles),
- MN
- Mammal Neogene,
- NMB
- Naturhistorisches Museum Basel,
- NMBE
- Naturhistorisches Museum Bern,
- p/P
- lower and upper premolars,
- sin.
- left.,
- TD
- transverse diameter,
- W
- width.
Copyright
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
Posted August 10, 2020.
The record of Deinotheriidae from the Miocene of the Swiss Jura Mountains (Jura Canton, Switzerland)
