Table of Content

15 December 2008, Volume 46 Issue 4

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FIRST RECORD OF LATE EOCENE INSECTIVORES AND CHIROPTERES FROM NEI MONGOL, CHINA　　

WANG Ban-Yue

2008, 46(4):  249-264. 

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Some fossil insectivores and chiropteres were collected from the Upper Eocene of Nei Mongol. They represent the first records of their kinds in Late Eocene in Nei Mongol. The discovery has not only expanded the distribution of insectivores and chiropteres in Asia, added new elements to the Late Eocene fauna of Nei Mongol, but also provided new information on paleoenvironment of this area.

Description of Skull Material of Machairodus horribilis Schlosser, 1903

QIU Zhan-Xiang , LIU Jin-Yi

2008, 46(4):  265-283. 

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Machairodus horribilis was erected by Schlosser in 1903, based on isolated teeth purchased from some drugstores in China. Zdansky attributed some of these teeth(P4 and C?) to his new species M. palanderi, but left the others (incisors,p4 and ml) as specifically indeterminate(Zdansky,1924:115). Otherwise, few paleontologists paid attention to Schlosser's species at all. While curating the Chinese Hipparion fauna fossils in IVPP during the early 1990's, the senior author of the present paper accidentally found two machairodont skulls collected from Baode in 1965, still unprepared. One of them turned out to be a perfectly preserved skull, while the other,a larger one, though only about half preserved, was associated with its mandible. Both were exceptionally large and possessed features shared exclusively by them. It was of particular interest that the ml of the 2nd skull seemed considerably close to that of Schlosser's M. horribilis in size and morphology. This renders it plausible to refer these two skulls to M. horribilis, and this would, in turn, rehabilitate Schlosser's M. horribilis. The other reason for presenting the present paper now is the recently emerged possibility of making more detailed comparison between the Chinese and the classical European Machairodus species. For this we owe much to the two recently published articles on the skulls and mandibles of M. aphanistus and M. giganteus (Anton et al.,2004; Geraads et al.,2004).

Late Miocene micromammals from the Qaidam Basin in the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau

Qiu Zhu-Ding, Li Qiang

2008, 46(4):  284-306. 

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This paper deals with an assemblage of small mammals collected from the upper Youshashan Formation at Shengou, Delingha, Qinghai Province during the field seasons of 2002−2005. The Shengou micromammalian fauna is composed of 16 species from 12 families belonging to the orders Insectivora, Rodentia and Lagomorpha. It is the most diverse and abundant micromammalian fauna known from the vast Qinghai-Xizang Plateau. One species of Muridae (Huerzelerimys exiguus) is described as new, and represents a new record of the genus in China. The Shengou Fauna appears to closely resemble the assemblage from the lower part of the Bahe Formation of Shaanxi, but slightly younger than the latter. It is most probably attributable to early Late Miocene, or the early Baodean of the Chinese Land Mammal Ages, correlated, in European terms, with late MN10 or early MN11. The fauna reflects a faunal distribution of the modern temperate region in China, and suggests a dry and open environment. Nevertheless, the climate in Qaidam area was unlike the exact situation of the present day, but was less arid with more vegetation during the early Late Miocene than it is today. Both habitats and composition of the fauna may imply that the Qinghai-Xizang Plateau had undergone a definite uplift in relation to the loess plateau after Miocene.

Late Miocene Cricetids from the Bahe Formation, Lantian, Shaanxi Province

Zhang Zhao-Qun , ZHENG Shao-Hua, LIU Li-Ping

2008, 46(4):  307-316. 

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Fossil cricetids found from the Bahe Formation, Lantian are assigned to Nannocricetus primitivus sp. nov. and Kowalskia indet. respectively by their dental characters and measurements. The new species Nannocricetus primitivus is characterized by its smaller size and having single cusped anteroconid of m1 on moderate and heavily worn teeth, presence of metalophulid I, absence of metalophulid II, no mesoloph on upper molars, absent or very weak mesolophid on lower molars, and very reduced M3. Magnetostratigraphic results of the Bahe Formation indicate that the localities produced Nannocricetus primitivus range from the early Late Miocene to the middle Late Miocene (~10.2−8 Ma). The primitiveness of the new species and its earlier geologic records suggest that it might be the direct ancestor of Nannocricetus mongolicus. The turnover from Nannocricetus primitivus to N. mongolicus should occur at about 7~8 Ma. There found only one m2 of Kowalskia. The fossil level of Kowalskia indet. is in the upper part of the main section, dated to slightly earlier than 8 Ma. Except the material from Lufeng (MN11), the Lantian material is one of the earliest emigrants from the western Eurasia.

HINDLIMB BONE PROPORTIONS OF CHINESE MESOZOIC BIRDS AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR PERCHING HABITS

ZHANG Yu-Guang , TIAN Xiao-Yang, LI Zhi-Heng

2008, 46(4):  317-329. 

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Statistic analyses of the proportions of the three major bones of the hindlimb (femur, tibiotarsus and tarsometatarsus) from 137 skeletons belonging to 59 families of 18 orders of living birds with different perching habits show that they can be used as a good indicator of their living styles. Measurements of the length of the hindlimb bones indicated that the tibiotarsus is invariably the largest among the three major leg bones. We also found that the femur is shorter than the tarsometatarsus in terrestrial birds while the reverse is true in arboreal birds. We also analyzed the leg bone proportions of 14 species of Mesozoic birds from the Early Cretaceous of China by using ternary diagrams and comparison with 21 specimens of Cenozoic (Paleogene and Neogene) birds，and concluded that the Early Cretaceous enantiornithines are typical arboreal birds, more basal birds from the Mesozoic are mainly arboreal with some adapted for scansorial life, and the ornithurines are characterized by both arboreal and terrestrial adaptations. Our work, combined with the phylogenetical framework of bird evolution, confirms that the arboreal adaptation represents a primitive condition for early birds, which provides further evidence for the arboreal hypothesis of the origin of bird flight. The differentiation of the perching habits of early birds demonstrates that they expanded their ecological niches and food resources during the competitions among themselves and with contemporaneous vertebrates.