A new species of Gulo from the Early Pliocene Gray Fossil Site (Eastern United States); rethinking the evolution of wolverines.

ABSTRACT: The wolverine (Gulo gulo) is the largest living terrestrial member of the Mustelidae; a versatile predator formerly distributed throughout boreal regions of North America and Eurasia. Though commonly recovered from Pleistocene sites across their range, pre-Pleistocene records of the genus are exceedingly rare. Here, we describe a new species of Gulo from the Gray Fossil Site in Tennessee. Based on biostratigraphy, a revised estimate of the age of the Gray Fossil Site is Early Pliocene, near the Hemphillian-Blancan transition, between 4.9 and 4.5 Ma. This represents the earliest known occurrence of a wolverine, more than one million years earlier than any other record. The new species of wolverine described here shares similarities with previously described species of Gulo, and with early f

SUBMITTER: Samuels JX 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5910791 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature