The shrews (Soricidae, Mammalia) of the Early and Middle Pleistocene of Gran Dolina (Atapuerca, Spain): reassessing their paleontological record in the Iberian Peninsula

Abstract

Soricids are small mammals with a mainly invertebrate diet. They are generally termed insectivores and are part of the mammalian Order Eulipotyphla. Soricids of the Early-Middle Pleistocene postdating the Jaramillo subchron are poorly known in the Iberian Peninsula, except for Dolinasorex glyphodon, endemic to north Spain, and scattered records of Sorex minutus, Crocidura russula, Crocidura kornfeldi and indeterminate species of Crocidura, Sorex and Neomys. This is mainly due to the scarcity of sites and the fragmentary fossil remains. In contrast, the record of soricids in the rest of Europe during this period is wide: there are sites with up to ten different species in the same stratigraphic level. As Gran Dolina (Atapuerca, Spain) provides one of the best anthropological, archaeological and faunal records of the late-Early (post-Jaramillo) to early-Middle Pleistocene, and as this occurs in an excellent, well-studied stratigraphic sequence documenting terrestrial environments, we here undertake an exhaustive revision of 200 fragmentary mandibles of this group of small mammals. Nine soricid taxa were identified in this archaeo-paleontological site: Sorex minutus, Sorex ex gr. runtonensis-subaraneus, Sorex (Drepanosorex) ex gr. margaritodon-savini, Dolinasorex glyphodon, Asoriculus gibberodon, Neomys cf. newtoni, Neomys cf. fodiens, Neomyni cf. Macroneomys and Crocidura kornfeldi. This is the first record of Neomys cf. newtoni in the Iberian Peninsula, the second specimen of Neomyni cf. Macroneomys, and the youngest record of A. gibberodon worldwide. Some of these taxa exhibit particularities when compared to their counterparts in the rest of the continent, adding to the variability of the species. Relict populations of Asoriculus gibberodon endured in the Iberian Peninsula into post-Jaramillo times, even after they had already disappeared from the rest of Europe.