Abstract
Seven new rodent faunas are described from the Pčinja and Babušnica-Koritnica basins of south-east Serbia. The geology of the Tertiary deposits in the Pčinja and Koritnica-Babušnica basins of south-east Serbia is briefly reviewed. The fossil content of the new vertebrate localities is listed, and an inventory of the rodent associations is presented. The rodent associations are late Eocene-early Oligocene in age, interpreted on biostratigraphical grounds. These are the first rodent faunas of that age from the Balkan area, an important palaeogeographic location between Europe and Asia. The Muridae, with the subfamilies Pseudocricetodontinae, Paracricetodontinae, Pappocricetodontinae, Melissiodontinae and ?Spalacinae, are dominant with eight genera, four of which are new. The diversity of the Melissiodontinae and Paracricetodontinae in the faunas suggests that these subfamilies originated in this region. The bi-lophodont cheek teeth occurring in the Oligocene assemblages are identified as the first record of the Diatomyidae outside of Asia. In light of the large amount of new data, the palaeogeographic setting and faunal turnover of the Eocene-Oligocene is discussed.
Highlights
The Natural History Museum in Belgrade is carrying out a research program on Tertiary mammal faunas of the Balkan, and several new faunas have been found, described and published
The Western and Central European Tertiary mammalian faunal history is relatively well known, and recently, many new data became available from Turkey and sites further afield in Asia
The association of rodents in the Eocene Buštranje site is unique in containing Pappocricetodontinae, Melissiodontinae, Pseudocricetodontinae and Paracricetodontinae
Summary
The Natural History Museum in Belgrade is carrying out a research program on Tertiary mammal faunas of the Balkan, and several new faunas have been found, described and published (e.g. the late Oligocene of the Banovići basin, de Bruijn et al 2013, and the lower Miocene of the Levač basin, see Marković and Milivojević 2016). Information from the Balkan area is crucial because of its location between Asia and Central Europe. In their search for new data, Zoran Marković and Miloš Milivojević (Natural History Museum in Belgrade) discovered the first remains of Paleogene mammals during a reconnaissance trip in the spring of 2010 in Southern Serbia. These were found in a roadside exposure in the BabušnicaKoritnica basin (Fig. 1) near the village of Strelac. The Paleogene deposits of the Babušnica-Koritnica and Pčinja basins were sampled
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