The first hyaenodont from the late Oligocene Nsungwe Formation of Tanzania: Paleoecological insights into the Paleogene-Neogene carnivore transition.

ABSTRACT: Throughout the Paleogene, most terrestrial carnivore niches in Afro-Arabia were occupied by Hyaenodonta, an extinct lineage of placental mammals. By the end of the Miocene, terrestrial carnivore niches had shifted to members of Carnivora, a clade with Eurasian origins. The transition from a hyaenodont-carnivore fauna to a carnivoran-carnivore fauna coincides with other ecological changes in Afro-Arabia as tectonic conditions in the African Rift System altered climatic conditions and facilitated faunal exchange with Eurasia. Fossil bearing deposits in the Nsungwe Formation in southwestern Tanzania are precisely dated to ~25.2 Ma (late Oligocene), preserving a late Paleogene Afro-Arabian fauna on the brink of environmental transition, including the earliest fossil evidence of the split betwe

SUBMITTER: Borths MR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5636082 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature