Late Oligocene rodents from Banovići (Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Abstract

The family Muridae dominates the Banovići (Bosnia and Herzegovina) rodent assemblage in diversity as well as in number of specimens. The glirids are the second in importance and the sciurids are only represented by few specimens. The composition of the assemblage is on species level quite unique and on genus level more similar to assemblages from the Earliest Miocene of Anatolia than to assemblages from the Late Oligocene and Early Miocene of Western Europe. In the latter area the murid genera Deperetomys, Mirrabella and Eumyarion are absent. The species of these genera from Banovići combine primitive and derived features and seem to represent the oldest member of their genus or even family, and do not fit in previously reconstructed evolutionary trends. The evolutionary history of the Spalacinae seems to be much more complex than thought so far. Theridomyidae and Eomyidae, typical for Late Oligocene Western European rodent assemblages, are absent in the Banovići assemblage as well as in the Anatolian ones. The Banovići assemblage is in this aspect also more similar to Anatolian rodent assemblages than to European ones. Newly named species are Bransatoglis bosniensis, Deperetomys magnus, Eumyarion margueritae, and in a new genus, Vetusspalax progressus. This small mammal study was combined with a magnetostratigraphic investigation of the sedimentary infill of the Banovići basin in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The age correlation of the fauna as well as the magnetostratigraphic data indicate an infill of the Banovići basin between 24–22 Ma. The rodent fauna is from the base of the basin infill, just below the major coal seam, and of an age of ~ 24 Ma