Miocene mammals of the Negev (Israel)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The early Miocene deposits of the Rotem and Yeroham basins in the Negev district of Israel have yielded 19 taxa of fossil mammals, of which two are new species: Gazella negevensis (Bovidae) and cf. Anasinopa haasi (Creodonta, Hyaenodontidae). This is the only early Miocene record of vertebrates from the southern Levant, with many typically African taxa including: Prodeinotherium sp., cf. Canthumeryx syrtensis, Dorcatherium cf. D. pigotti, Dorcatherium cf. D. chappuisi, Megapedetes cf. M. pentadactylus, Kenyalagomys sp., Crocodylus cf. C. pigotti, and Lates sp. (Teleostei). Owing to a quasi-spatial isolation of Gebel Zelten (Libya), Gebel Moghara (Egypt), Rusinga, Songhor (and others in East Africa), Bugti Hills (Pakistan) and the Negev, for which a general contemporaneity is suggested, endemism in these sites is relatively high, reflecting their different environments rather than heterochroneity. Hence similarity between these remote and rapidly changing regions was mainly based on congeneric lev...