Mitilanotherium inexpectatum (Giraffidae, Mammalia) from Huélago (Lower Pleistocene; Guadix-Baza basin, Granada, Spain) - Observations on a peculiar biogegraphic pattern

Abstract

Giraffid fossils from the lowermost Pleistocene (MN17) locality Huélago (Guadix-Baza Basin, Granada, Spain) are described and assigned to Mitilanotherium inexpectatum Samson, & Radulesco (1966). The remains are compared to giraffid material from the Pliocene and younger. The known geographic distribution of this giraffid is disjunct; it is found in Spain and in an area stretching from Rumania and Greece to Tadzhikistan, but not in central Europe. The oldest record is from the Upper Pliocene (MN16) of Turkey and the youngest is from the Lower Pleistocene of Greece (with an estimated age of about 1.2 Ma). Shortly after 2.6 Ma it may have dispersed to Spain, where it may have lived as much as half a million years. The dispersal did not leave a fossil record in the area between SE Europe and Spain. The same occured with dispersals of other mammals in the Early, Middle and Late Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene. These species that show this pattern are interpreted to be adapted to open or arid environments. Their dispersals across Europe to Spain may have occurred during short periods of atypical environmental conditions and thus did not leave an easily detectable fossil record.