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

Abstract

Mammutidae comprise a proboscidean family that originated in Africa during the late Oligocene, dispersedacross the Holarctic during the Miocene, and survived in North America until the end of the Pleistocene. Despite their longevolutionary history and wide geographic distribution mammutids are particularly scarce in the Miocene of Eurasia. Here, wepresent a new mammutid specimen (an upper deciduous premolar) from the Upper Miocene locality of Sazak insouthwestern Turkey. Morphological and metric traits of the tooth, in particular the well-expressed zygodonty, are distinctfrom the more basalZygolophodonand permit its assignment to the more derived“Mammut.”Due to the absence ofmore diagnostic specimens, a specific attribution is not possible; however, considering the Turolian age of the associatedfauna an attribution to the Late Miocene representative of the genus,“Mammut”obliquelophus, is possible. Turolianmammutids are rare in the fossil record and therefore our knowledge remains only fragmentary. Despite the existence ofa single specimen, the presence of this genus in Sazak corresponds to itsfirst report in the Upper Miocene of Turkey, aswell as thefirst 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 ofthe genus in the Upper Miocene of Eurasia but also provides another line of evidence of the paleozoogeographic linkenabling Europe–East Asia proboscidean interchanges during the Late Miocene.