First report of “Mammut” (Mammalia, Proboscidea) from the Upper Miocene of Turkey

Abstract

ABSTRACT Mammutidae comprise a proboscidean family that originated in Africa during the late Oligocene, dispersed across the Holarctic during the Miocene, and survived in North America until the end of the Pleistocene. Despite their long evolutionary history and wide geographic distribution mammutids are particularly scarce in the Miocene of Eurasia. Here, we present a new mammutid specimen (an upper deciduous premolar) from the Upper Miocene locality of Sazak in southwestern Turkey. Morphological and metric traits of the tooth, in particular the well-expressed zygodonty, are distinct from the more basal Zygolophodon and permit its assignment to the more derived “Mammut.” Due to the absence of more diagnostic specimens, a specific attribution is not possible; however, considering the Turolian age of the associated fauna an attribution to the Late Miocene representative of the genus, “Mammut” obliquelophus, is possible. Turolian mammutids are rare in the fossil record and therefore our knowledge remains only fragmentary. Despite the existence of a single specimen, the presence of this genus in Sazak corresponds to its first report in the Upper Miocene of Turkey, as well as the first one in western Asia. The presence of “Mammut” in the Upper Miocene of China was recently confirmed, and therefore the record of “Mammut” at Sazak, i.e., at the western margin of Asia, not only adds to the scanty record of the genus in the Upper Miocene of Eurasia but also provides another line of evidence of the paleozoogeographic link enabling Europe–East Asia proboscidean interchanges during the Late Miocene.