Članek poroča o odkritjih nahajališč pleistocenskih drobnih sesalcev v kraških zapolnitvah v Sloveniji. Najdena favna glodalcev je sestavljena iz predstavnikov arvicolidov, muridov in v manjši meri tudi kritecidov. V polnilu enega nahajališča pa so najdene le gliride. Določenih je šest različnih vrst lipotiplanskih insektivorov. V jamskih sedimentih so določene kosti netopirjev, ki pripadajo drugim vrstam kot žive danes v jami. The discovery of Pleistocene small mammals in karstic fillings of Slovenia is reported here. The rodent faunas collected there are mainly composed of arvicolids, murids and to a lesser degree of cricetids, although in one filling only glirids have been recorded yet. Six species of Lipotyphlan insectivores have been identified. A cave filling has yielded bats which belong to species different of those which occupy the cave to date.

Understanding mammalian tooth crown morphological changes during evolution constitutes a crucial area of investigation common to both palaeontology and developmental biology (Osborn, 1907; Hershkovitz, 1962; Hunter and Jernvall, 1994; Jernvall, 2000; Kangas et al., 2004; Kavanagh et al., 2007; Charles et al., 2009a,b; Harjunmaa et al., 2012). During the past two decades, relationships between tooth morphology, diet and mastication have been deciphered through topographic analyses of the crown surface (e.g. Reed, 1997; Jernvall and Selänne, 1999; Evans et al., 2007; Lazzari et al., 2008a,b; Boyer et al., 2010;Wilson et al., 2012). Such an approach allowed the investigation of several well-documented primate, rodent and multituberculate lineages showing drastic modifications of dental morphology.

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North Africa is an intricate biogeographical region at the crossroads of immigration waves from tropical Africa and Asia. Species confined between various barriers (Atlas Mountains, arid environments such as the Sahara in the south, water masses such as the Mediterranean Sea in the north, and the Atlantic Ocean in the west) were generally forced to adapt locally to environmental changes instead of tracking their habitat by shifting their distribution area. The present study aims at providing first insight into the evolution of the genus Mus, and more specifically of the western Mediterranean species Mus spretus in this area. The study relies on the abundant Late Pleistocene and Middle Holocene fossil assemblage from the El Harhoura 2 cave (Rabat-Temara, Morocco). This exceptional record was studied using geometric morphometrics applied to first upper and lower molars, constituting the most informative and best preserved fossil remains for such small rodents. Two main issues were addressed. (1) Geometric morphometrics was used to clarify taxonomic status and phylogenetic relationships among fossil and modern species in this area. Morphometric analysis revealed good discrimination of most modern and fossil species but failed to document intermediate forms tracing anagenetic evolution. Not mutually exclusive, the occurrence of complex processes of morphological evolution in this genus such as parallel evolution and the action of stabilizing selection may make it difficult to translate patterns of morphological evolution into phylogenetic conclusions. (2) The record was shown to document a sequence of intraspecific evolution of M.spretus. The morphology of the molars through the fossil record of El Harhoura 2 was surprisingly stable despite extensive modern variation. The limited temporal variation largely failed to correlate to palaeoenvironmental proxies. The mouse fossil record at El Harhoura 2 thus presents an intriguing case of morphological stasis despite extensive environmental changes. This long-term stability may have been recently perturbed by anthropogenic factors including landscape changes and introduction of various competitors and predators, leading to a size reduction.(c) 2013 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2013, 109, 599-621.

Adaptive radiations in mammals are sometimes associated with the emergence of key dental innovations facilitating food processing and masticatory movements. The dietary aspects of such innovations constitute an important focus in evolutionary biology. Murine rodents, which originated during middle Miocene, currently constitute the largest extant mammalian subfamily. Their adaptive radiation combines an original chewing motion with a peculiar occlusal pattern. The fossil record clearly establishes the timing of acquisitions of those innovations, and the aim of our study was to estimate the dietary changes associated with each of them. Fossil taxa phylogenetically closest to Murinae were investigated through the use of geographic information system applied on maps obtained from first upper molars digitized by X-ray synchrotron microtomography. This methodology enables estimation of quantitative topographic descriptors of the dietary specializations of the molar crown. The peculiar forwardly directed chewing motion acquired by stem Murinae may have been a key innovation allowing the invasion of an insectivorous dietary niche. The further radiation of crown Murinae coincides with the return to the plant-dominated omnivorous dietary niche of their distant ancestors through the acquisition of new morphological traits. The retention of the forwardly directed chewing motion by the crown Murinae could have become a competitive advantage in the context of a more generalist diet.

In paleontology, many changes affecting morphology, such as tooth shape in mammals, are interpreted as ecological adaptations that reflect important selective events. Despite continuing studies, the identification of the genetic bases and key ecological drivers of specific mammalian dental morphologies remains elusive. Here we focus on the genetic and functional bases of stephanodonty, a pattern characterized by longitudinal crests on molars that arose in parallel during the diversification of murine rodents. We find that overexpression of Eda or Edar is sufficient to produce the longitudinal crests defining stephanodonty in transgenic laboratory mice. Whereas our dental microwear analyses show that stephanodonty likely represents an adaptation to highly fibrous diet, the initial and parallel appearance of stephanodonty may have been facilitated by developmental processes, without being necessarily under positive selection. This study demonstrates how combining development and function can help to evaluate adaptive scenarios in the evolution of new morphologies.

The Lava mouse ( Malpaisomys insularis), and the Canarian shrew ( Crocidura canariensis) are endemic of the Eastern Canary Islands and islets. The former is extinct while Canarian shrew survives in the two main islands and two islets. In order to provide insights regarding causes and processes contributing to the extinction of these endemic mammals: (i) we established last occurrence dates for Lava mouse, and first records for two exotic species – House mouse ( Mus musculus) and Black rat ( Rattus rattus) – through direct 14 C AMS dating of collagen from bones; (ii) we analysed recent material from Barn owl ( Tyto alba gracilirostris) roosting sites to evaluate its impact on Canarian shrew in the presence of introduced rodents. The new data strongly suggest that the extinction of Lava mouse was the result of an accumulative process of independent disappearances (or ‘local extinctions’) affecting the isolated populations. The timing of the introduction of the Black rat on the main islands (before Middle Age European contact in Lanzarote and after Middle Age European contact in Fuerteventura) matches with the last occurrence dates for the presence of Lava mouse on these islands, and are very probably their cause. The losses of these Lava mouse populations occurred in an asynchronous way, spreading across at least six centuries. On small islands, hyperpredation emerges as the most plausible process to explain the disappearance of the Lava mouse in the absence of rat populations, although stochastic processes can not be definitively excluded.

A three-dimensional reconstruction of the skeleton of the giant rat of Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain) Canariomys bravoi was obtained by computerized microtomography. Body size, body mass, and body shape were estimated, and limb morphofunctional indices used to infer the style of life of this recently extinct rat. A sample of recent Murinae, including the Philippines endemic giant cloud rat Phloeomys cumingi, was used for comparison. It appears that C. bravoi differed from most continental rats by its relatively large size, body proportions, and tail length. Among its distinctive features, claws almost similarly developed on fore and hind limbs, and feet longer than hands evoke an intermediate body shape between rats and arboreal murines like Phloeomys. C. bravoi was a strong and powerfully muscled rat able to move on different substrates from Boor to trees, and probably had digging skills. (C) 2012 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Background The lava mouse, Malpaisomys insularis, was endemic to the Eastern Canary islands and became extinct at the beginning of the 14th century when the Europeans reached the archipelago. Studies to determine Malpaisomys' phylogenetic affinities, based on morphological characters, remained inconclusive because morphological changes experienced by this insular rodent make phylogenetic investigations a real challenge. Over 20 years since its first description, Malpaisomys' phylogenetic position remains enigmatic. Methodology/Principal Findings In this study, we resolved this issue using molecular characters. Mitochondrial and nuclear markers were successfully amplified from subfossils of three lava mouse samples. Molecular phylogenetic reconstructions revealed, without any ambiguity, unsuspected relationships between Malpaisomys and extant mice (genus Mus, Murinae). Moreover, through molecular dating we estimated the origin of the Malpaisomys/mouse clade at 6.9 Ma, corresponding to the maximal age at which the archipelago was colonised by the Malpaisomys ancestor via natural rafting. Conclusion/Significance This study reconsiders the derived morphological characters of Malpaisomys in light of this unexpected molecular finding. To reconcile molecular and morphological data, we propose to consider Malpaisomys insularis as an insular lineage of mouse.

Two species of mice inhabit Morocco today: Mus spretus is characteristics of West-Mediterranean undisturbed areas, whereas the cosmopolitan Mus musculus domesticus is typical for anthropogenic habitats. Little is known about the temporal dynamics of interaction between these species in North Africa, mainly because of the difficulty to distinguish them in fossil assemblages, and because of the rarity of detailed analyses of the local fossil record. To tackle this question, we studied morphological variations in the fossil mice from El Harhoura 2 cave (Rabat-Temara, Morocco) using geometric morphometrics. Size and shape of the first upper and lower molars were quantified using a Fourier analysis of their outline. This approach has been proven efficient to discriminate between rodent species or populations. Modern (M. spretus, M. m. domesticus) and extinct Pleistocene species (M. haouzi, M. hamidae, M. jotterandi) from Morocco were used as reference. Our morphometric results evidenced a good discrimination between the Mus species used as reference. This allowed a refined interpretation of the mouse fossil record through the El Harhoura 2 section, ranging from the Late Pleistocene to the Middle Holocene. Most teeth from El Harhoura 2 appeared as morphologically close to M. spretus. It seems that only one species occurred all along the record, attributed to an archaic form of M. spretus. Yet, differences between archaeological levels suggest the occurrence of local evolutionary processes within this species.

While exceptional for an intense diversification of lineages, the evolutionary history of the order Rodentia comprises only a limited number of morphological morphotypes for the mandible. This situation could partly explain the intense debates about the taxonomic position of the latest described member of this clade, the Laotian rock rat Laonastes aenigmamus (Diatomyidae). This discovery has re-launched the debate on the definition of the Hystricognathi suborder identified using the angle of the jaw relative to the plane of the incisors. Our study aims to end this ambiguity. For clarity, it became necessary to revisit the entire morphological diversity of the mandible in extant and extinct rodents. However, current and past rodent diversity brings out the limitations of the qualitative descriptive approach and highlights the need for a quantitative approach. Here, we present the first descriptive comparison of the masticatory apparatus within the Ctenohystrica clade, in combining classic comparative anatomy with morphometrical methods. First, we quantified the shape of the mandible in rodents using 3D landmarks. Then, the analysis of osteological features was compared to myological features in order to understand the biomechanical origin of this morphological diversity. Among the morphological variation observed, the mandible of Laonastes aenigmamus displays an intermediate association of features that could be considered neither as sciurognathous nor as hystricognathous.

Many genera of arvicolid rodents (voles) contain species that spend a considerable amount of time underground. Incisors provide a considerable effort in the digging process and a difference in the enamel microstructure of incisors is expected between species that spend most of their life above ground and those who have greater specializations for a subterranean habitat. The ratio between the thicknesses of the two layers composing the enamel of the incisors has proved to be an effective proxy to infer fossorial activity of extinct forms of Arvicola but this ratio exhibited no phylogenetic signal (although lifestyle was in a greater extent related to phylogeny). We were able to infer ancestral lifestyles (of extinct populations and of nodes of the phylogeny) from enamel morphologies. Inclusion of fossils did not solve the uncertainties associated with the lifestyle for the last common ancestor of extant Arvicola species and it did not change the inferred lifestyle of several other, less inclusive, clades. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Masson SAS on behalf of l'Academie des sciences.

OBJECTIVE:This study was designed to interpret the differences between the occlusal relationships in the murine rodents and those in their Miocene "cricetodont" ancestors. It aimed at understanding the functional transformations that led to the emergence of the peculiar chewing motion of the Murinae, associating forwardly directed masticatory movements to cusp interlocking, a trait unique amongst mammals. METHODS:Microwear analyses and simulations of occlusion achieved with size-increased 3D printings of teeth crafted from 3D data obtained by X-ray synchrotron microtomography at the European synchrotron radiation facility allow us to carefully interpret the occlusal relationships in Muroidea. RESULTS:A rotation of the direction of the chewing movements occurred from "Cricetodontinae" to Murinae. This rotation emerged without any cusp removal contrary to previous interpretations, by the way of an occlusal reorganization involving a loss of contacts between some cusps, offset by a contact with other cusps. This new organization was already present in the early and middle Miocene genus Potwarmus. CONCLUSION:Molar tooth evolution in Murinae was characterized by the preservation and the reshaping of the primitive muroid cusps, the acquisition of supplementary cusps, and changes in the contacts between the opposite cusps. During evolution, changes of cusp patterns in upper and lower molar teeth are coordinated in order to retain a functional occlusion. Because of this functional constraint, one cusp was supposed to more likely occlude with the same opposite cusps during evolution, and therefore homologous cusps would always carry homologous attrition facets. Evolution of Murinae proves that functional continuity can also be preserved through changes in occlusal relationships independently from cusp removal.

A Pleistocene new material of dormice (Genus Glis) is described. Three morphological species are recognized on the basis of size and morphology of the teeth: Glis sackdillingensis Heller, 1930, Glis mihevci nov. sp., and Glis perkoi nov. sp. The two new species, larger than G. sackdillingensis, are morphologically less evolved than the present day Glis glis of Slovenia, which has larger teeth.

Many species concepts have been proposed, but biologists and palaeontologists can use the same concept to interpret present and past biodiversity as well as evolution at the species level. But the present development of many disciplines creates the opportunity of reciprocal enlightenment of the pictures obtained of species according to different criteria: morphology, hybridization, and affiliation. Observations of long (geological) and short (biological, ecological) time intervals can consequently be more easily integrated. The increase in number of developmental studies is also an important event for understanding morphological evolution. In this context, the present work aims to comment on a few studies done on rodents (Rodentia, Mammalia), which successively deal with species recognition, estimation of past biodiversity, and the pictures given by fossils of morphological evolution. (C) 2011 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

New Middle Miocene rodent faunas from Languedoc-Roussillon (southern France); implication for biostratigraphic correlations. The fossil mammal bearing localities Blanquatere 3 (Roussillon; filling of a fissure in a karst) and Puisserguier (Languedoc; brackish to lake deposit) have provided Middle Miocene rodents that first allow correlating these sites to Blanquatere 1 (Roussillon; older) and La Grenatiere (Languedoc; younger). Second, the occurrence of the genus Cricetodon in these newly discovered localities similarly allow revisiting the correlations already proposed with the well-known localities from the Lyon area, Vieux-Collonges and La Grive. Blanquatere 3 and Puisserguier are older than La Grive, and Blanquatere 3 is slightly older than Vieux-Collonges. The fossil bearing levels of Puisserguier is interstratified in a mainly marine succession ending with brackish to lake deposits, which includes the level of La Grenatiere. The onshore (Western Beziers area) and offshore (Tramontane 1 drilling) data on the marine Miocene agree referring these deposits to the Serravallian stage, the uppermost marine levels belonging to zone NN9 (drill) and NN6 (onshore), the uppermost brackish to lake deposits cannot be younger that the Miocene deposits encountered by the drill. According to the new collected data on one side, and the Miocene chronostratigraphy, it can be hypothesized that Blanquatere 3 is c. 15.5 Myr old and Puisserguier, c. 14 Myr.

ABSTRACT Addition to the study of rodents (Mammalia, Rodentia, Cricetids, Eomyids, Sciurids) from the karstic locality of Blanquatère 1 (Middle Miocene, southern France). Blanquatere 1 is the filling of a fissure opened in a limestone that had already provided a rich fauna (more than 6300 isolated teeth, 33 species) of small mammals including mainly rodents among which several new species of Cricetidae and Gliridae, referred to the Middle Miocene. The present paper brings an addition to this fauna with the description of the Cricetidae Eumyarion, Democricetodon, and Pseudofahlbuschia, of the Eomyidae Ligerimys et Keramidomys, and of the Sciuridae Spermophilinus and Heteroxerus. This highly diverse fauna must be definitely considered as a reference for the first part of the Middle Miocene (MN ⅘⅘) in South Western Europe. It testifies of the occurrence of both new taxa and allochtonous ones, as the gerbillid Dakkamys sp. the occurrence of which being likely related to the closure of the Tethys in the Middle East during the Langhian. The co-occurrence of Ligerimys and Keramidomys is also documented as the oldest one. This fauna also illustrates the interest of karstic fissure fillings when they are exceptionally rich: they can deliver remains of species either very rare or of short duration.

An ecomorphological approach of mandible shape through Fourier analyses combined with a paleodietary analysis of dental microwear patterns is used to reconstruct the diet of the extinct endemic Canariomys bravoi Crusafont, Pairo & Petter, 1964 and Canariomys tamarani Lopez-Martinez & Lopez-Jurado, 1987. These two large rodents, respectively, lived on Tenerife and Gran Canaria, the central islands of the Canarian Archipelago. Mandible shape and dental microwear respectively inform us on the volume of vegetal matter and on the presence of grass in the diet. Both Canariomys, which are of similar size, possess relatively similar mandible outlines and microwear patterns. For each species, a diet based on plant materials except grass is the most likely. Such results chime with the similar environments offered by the islands in which the species lived. On the contrary, molar morphology suggests different feeding habits of the two Canariomys. Thus, this suggests a case of mosaic evolution between teeth and mandibles, as well as the likely sensitivity of mandible shape to a combination of ecological and allometric factors. These new data obtained from the fossil record underline the propensity of island endemic mammals to yield surprising examples of phenotypic evolution. (C) 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 101, 28-40.