Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene epochs 3.6 to 0.8 million years ago had climates resembling those forecasted under future warming.
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November 2021
The remains of the white-toothed shrew Crocidura kornfeldi Kormos, 1934 (one skull fragment with almost complete dentition, the fragmental rostral part of a skull with the left upper incisor, a maxillary fragment, five mandibular fragments and an isolated upper incisor) from the Lower Pleistocene deposits of the Taurida cave in the central Crimea (Belogorsk district, Zuya village) are described. This earliest European species of the genus Crocidura was quite common in the Early Pleistocene of Central Europe and the Mediterranean; for the first time, it is described from Crimea and the entire Eastern Europe.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA new genus and species of rodent, Lamugaulus olkhonensis, belonging to the subfamily Promylagaulinae of the family Mylagaulidae, is described on the basis of isolated teeth from the Khalagay Formation of the Lower Miocene Tagay locality (Olkhon island, Lake Baikal, Irkutsk Region). This is the first record of mylagaulids in Eastern Siberia, significantly expanding the data on the distribution of this mainly North American group of rodents in Asia and showing its presence outside the Central Asian arid zone.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhylogenetic analysis of supraspecies relationships in one of the most young and species rich group of myomorph rodents - subfamily Arvicolinae was carried out on the base of two nuclear genes. Results have shown that mole-voles - Ellobiusini, steppe voles - (Lagurini) and grey voles (Arvicolini) are sister groups. This divergence is the most late, third wave of radiation within the family.
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