"Anchitherium aurelianense (Equidae, Mammalia): A brachydont ""dirty browser"" in the community of herbivorous large mammals from Sandelzhausen (Miocene, Germany)"

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Erscheinungsjahr:
2009
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Text
Schlagworte:
  • Brachydont mixed feeder
  • Equidae
  • Feeding adaptation
  • Mesowear
  • Neogene
  • Palaeoecology
  • Ruminantia
Beschreibung:
  • The Anchitheriinae are an extinct subfamily of Equidae that first appeared in North America near the base of the Miocene. Anchitheriinae are found in subtropical to warm temperate habitats and were long considered to be adapted to eating browse. In Europe the genus Anchitherium first occurred in the MN3 mammal zone and became extinct in MN9. The assemblage from Sandelzhausen (Early/Middle Miocene, boundary MN5) is one of the best dental samples known of Old World Anchitherium. The mesowear method was applied to reconstruct the dietary regime of A. aurelianense from Sandelzhausen. Hierarchical cluster statistics and principal component analysis was performed on mesowear variables. Thirty-five upper cheek teeth of A. aurelianense were analysed, and mesowear signatures compared with those of five ruminant species from Sandelzhausen. The extant analogue species indicate that A. aurelianense at Sandelzhausen had a diet similar in abrasiveness to that of extant mixed feeders and that the Sandelzhausen ruminants all occupied a browsing niche with little or no abrasives in their diet. Knowing now that brachydont anchitheres were able to cope with rather abrasive diets, it is assumed that hypsodont North American equids of the Cormohipparion clade, arriving in Europe successively with the extinction of anchitheres shortly after the "hipparion datum" in the MN9, introduced a new component of competition in their dietary niche. The extinction of the Anchitheriidae can now be better understood as response to this competition. © Springer-Verlag 2009.
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  • info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess
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Forschungsinformationssystem der UHH
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