Duerotherium sudrei gen. Et sp. Nov., a new anoplotheriinae artiodactyl from the Middle Eocene of the Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

[EN] Anoplotheriines were endemic artiodactyl faunas in Europe during the Eocene. Europe was made up of several large and small islands from the late Early Eocene to the earliest Oligocene (e.g., Meulenkamp et al., 2000), and was inhabited by an endemic mammalian fauna that was clearly different from contemporary faunae in North America and Asia. Anoplotheriines were medium- to large-sized ungulates with brachydont and bunoseledont dentition and likely used terrestrial locomotion (Sudre, 1988). Hooker (2007) recognized a bipedal browsing adaptation for the large Anoplotherium species, which would have been able to browse 2-3 m above the ground with no competition from other contemporaneous European terrestrial mammals. Anoplotheriines are regarded as members of the immigrant taxa that appeared on the Central European Island around the Middle-Late Eocene transition. They seem to have originated within Europe, but their area of origin and the dispersal directions that they took through the different areas of the Eocene European archipelago are still poorly characterized.