No place for Pliocene tourists with Ockham's razor in the pocket: Comment on Crespo et al. (2023)
Furió Bruno, Marc (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Geologia)
Minwer-Barakat, Raef (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)
García-Alix, Antonio (Universidad de Granada. Departamento de Estratigrafía y Paleontología)

Date:	2024
Abstract:	Crespo et al. (2023) have recently described a new genus and species called Europotamogale melkarti, purportedly an afrosoricid 'tourist genus' coming from central Africa to Spain during the Pliocene. The occurrence of this mysterious animal has been justified by means of a migration of thousands of kilometers leaving no other fossil evidence all along such an incredible journey. According to our analyses, this 'tourist genus' is surrounded by many inconsistent facts, which lead us to the conclusion that Europotamogale should not have been erected as a new taxon because its holotype (and only element yet known) belongs to a very different animal. We alternatively propose that this fossil is indeed a fragment of a tooth of a water-mole of the genus Archaeodesmana, which is a much more parsimonious hypothesis.
Grants:	Agencia Estatal de Investigación PID2020-117289GB-I00 Agencia Estatal de Investigación PID2020-116908GB-I00 Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca 2021/SGR-00127
Note:	Altres ajuts: acords transformatius de la UAB
Rights:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Subject:	Afrosoricida ; Eulipotyphla ; Pliocene ; Iberian Peninsula
Published in:	Palaeoworld, Vol. 33, Issue 6 (December 2024) , p. 1727-1734, ISSN 1875-5887
Related work:	Crespo V.D., Cruzado-Caballero P., Castillo C. "First afrosoricid out of Africa: an example of Pliocene 'tourism' in Europe". Palaeoworld, vol. 32, issue 3 (2023), p. 367-372 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palwor.2023.03.006

DOI: 10.1016/j.palwor.2024.02.002

8 p, 1.1 MB

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Research literature > UAB research groups literature > Research Centres and Groups (research output) > Experimental sciences > Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP)
Articles > Research articles
Articles > Published articles