Dragon bones from the heavens: European explorations and early palaeontology in Zanda Basin of Tibet, retracing type locality of Qurliqnoria hundesiensis and Hipparion (Plesiohipparion) zandaense

Abstract

ABSTRACT More than 200 years since its initial exploration, Zanda Basin, a high-elevation (3,800–4,500 m above sea), intermountain basin at the foothills of the Himalaya, is the site to some of the earliest fossil discoveries, including the holotype of extinct Tibetan antelope, Qurliqnoria hundesiensis. These fossils also hold the record, in 1823, as the first vertebrate fossils from Tibet in the scientific literature. Unfortunately, these tantalising early records have become all but forgotten for more than 100 years due to a lack of information about their localities. Our recent explorations in the 2000s revive the interests in Zanda Basin and establish a unique Zanda mammal assemblage important in the evolution of Tibetan Neogene mammals. In this paper, we retrace the expedition routes by early explorers and attempt to establish, to the extent possible, the type locality of two key mammals in the Zanda fauna: Q. hundesiensis and Hipparion (Plesiohipparion) zandaense. We highlight the pivotal role Zanda fossil mammals play in the early discourse of mountain building, climate change, and mammal adaptation in high Himalaya, more than a hundred years before Chinese palaeontologists made a similar argument upon the discovery of three-toed horses, in the 1980s, at different basins in Tibet.