Table of Content

15 September 2014, Volume 52 Issue 3

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A Late Miocene Ursavus skull from Guanghe, Gansu, China

QIU Zhan-Xiang, DENG Tao, WANG Ban-Yue

2014, 52(3):  265-302. 

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An almost complete Ursavus skull in association with its mandible is described. The skull was recently found from upper part of Liushu Formation in Linxia Basin. Its stratigraphic level and geologic age are correlated to the late Bahean ALMA/S, ~8 Ma. It represents a new species, here named Ursavus tedfordi. Cladistic analysis is conducted using the TNT software, based on a matrix of 11 taxa and 37 characters. The tree 5 of the 8 most parsimonious trees is chosen as the most reliable to reflect the phylogenetic history of the ursid clade. As the tree 5 shows, after divergence from the Oligocene-Early Miocene hemicyonids (Cephalogale), the ursid clade first yielded two stem-taxa: Ballusia elmensis and B. orientalis, the latter of which being an aberrant branch. Then, two major subclades emerged: one comprising Kretzoiarctos, Agriarctos and Ailurarctos, the other containing all Ursavus species and their descendants including all living bears (excluding Ailuropoda). Kretzoiarctos may not be the direct ancestral form of the giant panda as Abella and colleagues (2012) suggested, but the ancestral form of the lineage of Indarctos(+Agriotherium ?). Among the numerous Ursavus species, U. tedfordiis the most advanced and closest related to the living bears (excludingAiluropoda) in morphology, however, might belong to a side-branch, judging by the autapomorphies possessed by it.

Late Miocene Cervavitus novorossiae (Cervidae, Artiodactyla) from Lantian, Shaanxi Province

WANG Li-Hua, ZHANG Zhao-Qun

2014, 52(3):  303-315. 

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Deer fossils from the basal of the Lantian Formation are described and assigned to Cervavitus novorossiae by their medium size, three-tined antlers, curved beams, pedicles prolongated by a ridge on the frontals, the long span between the burr and first fork in young individuals, long and curved brow tine with laterally flattened fork etc. Overview of the pliocervines from China confirms that five species ofCervavitus existed in China: C. novorossiae, C. shanxius, C. huadeensis,C. ultimus, and C. fenqii. New biochronological data and comparative study suggest the possible origination of Cervavitus in East Europe, and it migrated to China from the beginning of Baode age. The differences of C. novorossiae from C. shanxius show that C. novorossiae might evolve into the latter in order to adapt to local climatic and ecological changes. From Pliocene on, the East Asian winter monsoon intensified,and there are much less records of Cervavitus and no records from Pleistocene in North China. While South China, much less affected by the winter monsoon, may be the last refuge of this genus.

New materials of the Late Miocene Muntiacusfrom Zhaotong hominoid site in southern China

DONG Wei, JI Xue-Ping, Nina G. JABLONSKI, Denise F. SU, LI Wen-Qi

2014, 52(3):  316-327. 

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 Rescue excavations carried out from 2007 to 2010 at the Shuitangba lignite field in Zhaotong, Yunnan Province, not only resulted in the discovery of a new hominoid cranium and the addition of a new hominoid site in Yunnan, but the finding of a new muntjak with following characters: the brow tine is very close to the burr, which is moderately developed; the main beam extends backward and somewhat laterally, and then turns somewhat medially; and the neocrista and entocingulum are developed on the upper molars. The four limbs are relatively short. A cladistic analysis shows that the new materials represent a muntjak that is not in a sister-group relationship with Muntiacus leilaoensis from Yuanmou Late Miocene hominoid site, but rather represents an independent branch. Muntiacus zhaotongensis sp. nov. is proposed for the new muntjak materials. “Metacervulus sp.” from the “Yongle lignite field” recovered in 1978 is a synonym of the new species. The so-called “Yongle lignite field” is actually the Shuitangba lignite field. The layers yielding the materials of M. zhaotongensis sp. nov. are all within C3An.1n based on paleomagnetic correlation, with an estimated age between 6.1 to 5.9 Ma (terminal Miocene).

The Jiyuan tetrapod fauna of the Upper Permian of China—2. stratigraphy, taxonomical review, and correlation

LIU Jun, XU Li, JIA Song-Hai, PU Han-Yong, LIU Xiao-Ling

2014, 52(3):  328-339. 

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Reexamination of the specimens from the Jiyuan tetrapod fauna, shows that this assemblage is dominated by the pareiasaurHonania complicidentata and comprises three chroniosuchian species including Bystrowiana sinica, Jiyuanitectum flatum gen. et sp. nov., and Dromotectum largum sp. nov., one cynodont species and possibly one gorgonopsian. It is roughly correlated to the Ilinskoe Subassemblage of the Sokolki Assemblage of Russia and theCistecephalus Assemblage Zone of South Africa.

Earliest records of dinosaur footprints in Xinjiang, China

Xing Li-Da, Martin G. LOCKLEY, WANG Qi-Fei, LI Zhong-Dong, Hendrik KLEIN, W. Scott PERSONS IV,YE Yong,Masaki MATSUKAWA

2014, 52(3):  340-348. 

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 Although Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is a vast territory, its fossil tetropod track record is scant. In recent years, this situation has begun to change and a variety of Jurassic and Cretaceous tetrapod tracks have been reported and described from Xinjiang, including tracks attributable to birds, non-avian dinosaurs, and pterosaurs. Here we report on the first dinosaur track discovered from Lower Jurassic deposits in Xinjiang. The tracks are those of a small theropod and are oldest known dinosaur tracks in Northwest China. The tracks are provisionally assigned to cf. Changpeipus isp., which resembles well-known tracks in the Grallator-Eubrontes plexus, which dominate tetrapod ichnofaunas in the Early and Middle Jurassic both within China and globally.