Abstract
Two new late Oligocene species of Deperetomys: D. calefactus and D. saltensis, are described and the affinities between the various species are discussed. The new records extend the stratigraphic range of Deperetomys into the Oligocene, making it the first European Miocene murid that can be traced across the “Cricetid vacuum”. A single M1 of a large early Oligocene murid that may represent the oldest record of Deperetomys is described. The classification problems that arise as a result of the fast increase of information of the Paleogene Muridae from Asia and the Middle East are addressed and the need to recognise and define clades above the genus level is demonstrated. Our conclusion is that the Deperetomys clade contains at least three different evolutionary lineages.
Highlights
The first teeth of a large Oligocene cricetine from the Balkans were collected by one of us (ZM) in 1997 from the coal used for heating the Natural History Museum in Belgrade
Allocation of the new species Deperetomys calefactus and D. saltensis from the late Oligocene of Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina to the genus Deperetomys is primarily based on overall similarity in dental pattern with the late middle Miocene type species D. hagni, the late Oligocene D. magnus and the early Miocene D. anatolicus and D. intermedius (Figs. 7 and 8)
Absolute size is not considered to be of great taxonomic importance, it is striking that all species allocated to Deperetomys so far are relatively large
Summary
The first teeth of a large Oligocene cricetine from the Balkans were collected by one of us (ZM) in 1997 from the coal used for heating the Natural History Museum in Belgrade This remarkable find, which could be traced to the coal mine of Bugotovo Selo near Ugljevik in Bosnia and Herzegovina, triggered the collaboration of the vertebrate palaeontology. During the course of our studies of the Paleogene rodents from the Balkans, it became clear that these assemblages contain numerous Asian components (de Bruijn et al 2018; Marković et al 2018b; Wessels et al 2018) This circumstance led to the comparison of our material with genera from all over Eurasia containing large species with a double anterocone in the M1 and a deep forward directed sinus in the M3. The schmelzmuster of the lower incisor could not be used as a selection criterion for this comparison because this characteristic is not known in a number of genera that qualify otherwise
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