| Heteroprox Temporal range: Miocene | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Skull | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Artiodactyla |
| Family: | Cervidae |
| Genus: | † Heteroprox Schaub, 1928 |
| Type species | |
| †Heteroprox larteti Filhol, 1891 (as Cervus larteti) | |
| Species | |
| |
Heteroprox is an extinct genus of deer from the Miocene of Europe.
Heteroprox was a mid-sized deer that would have been similar in appearance to a muntjac. It would have stood about 1 m (3.3 ft) tall and weighed around 35 kg (77 lb). [1]
It had fairly long legs, and two-pronged antlers. Based on its leg proportions, it was probably semi-aquatic and lived in humid, swampy environments. [1]
Dental microwear and mesowear indicates that H. larteti consumed significant quantities of abrasive grasses. [2]
Hyenas or hyaenas are feliform carnivoran mammals belonging to the family Hyaenidae. With just four extant species, it is the fifth-smallest family in the order Carnivora and one of the smallest in the class Mammalia. Despite their low diversity, hyenas are unique and vital components of most African ecosystems.
Ungulates are members of the diverse clade Euungulata, which primarily consists of large mammals with hooves. Once part of the clade "Ungulata" along with the clade Paenungulata, "Ungulata" has since been determined to be a polyphyletic and thereby invalid clade based on molecular data. As a result, true ungulates had since been reclassified to the newer clade Euungulata in 2001 within the clade Laurasiatheria while Paenungulata has been reclassified to a distant clade Afrotheria. Living ungulates are divided into two orders: Perissodactyla including equines, rhinoceroses, and tapirs; and Artiodactyla including cattle, antelope, pigs, giraffes, camels, sheep, deer, and hippopotamuses, among others. Cetaceans such as whales, dolphins, and porpoises are also classified as artiodactyls, although they do not have hooves. Most terrestrial ungulates use the hoofed tips of their toes to support their body weight while standing or moving. Two other orders of ungulates, Notoungulata and Litopterna, both native to South America, became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene, around 12,000 years ago.
A deer or true deer is a hoofed ruminant ungulate of the family Cervidae. Cervidae is divided into subfamilies Cervinae and Capreolinae. Male deer of almost all species, as well as female reindeer, grow and shed new antlers each year. These antlers are bony extensions of the skull and are often used for combat between males.
Artiodactyls are placental mammals belonging to the order Artiodactyla. Typically, they are ungulates which bear weight equally on two of their five toes. The other three toes are either present, absent, vestigial, or pointing posteriorly. By contrast, most perissodactyls bear weight on an odd number of the five toes. Another difference between the two orders is that many artiodactyls digest plant cellulose in one or more stomach chambers rather than in their intestine. Molecular biology, along with new fossil discoveries, has found that cetaceans fall within this taxonomic branch, being most closely related to hippopotamuses. Some modern taxonomists thus apply the name Cetartiodactyla to this group, while others opt to include cetaceans within the existing name of Artiodactyla. Some researchers use "even-toed ungulates" to exclude cetaceans and only include terrestrial artiodactyls, making the term paraphyletic in nature.
The Bovidae comprise the biological family of cloven-hoofed, ruminant mammals that includes cattle, bison, buffalo, antelopes, sheep and goats. A member of this family is called a bovid. With 143 extant species and 300 known extinct species, the family Bovidae consists of 11 major subfamilies and thirteen major tribes. The family evolved 20 million years ago, in the early Miocene.
Musk deer can refer to any one, or all eight, of the species that make up Moschus, the only extant genus of the family Moschidae. Despite being commonly called deer, they are not true deer belonging to the family Cervidae, but rather their family is closely related to Bovidae, the group that contains antelopes, bovines, sheep, and goats. The musk deer family differs from cervids, or true deer, by lacking antlers and preorbital glands also, possessing only a single pair of teats, a gallbladder, a caudal gland, a pair of canine tusks and—of particular economic importance to humans—a musk gland.
Chevrotains, or mouse-deer, are diminutive, even-toed ungulates that make up the family Tragulidae, and are the only living members of the infraorder Tragulina. The 10 extant species are placed in three genera, but several species also are known only from fossils. The extant species are found in forests in South and Southeast Asia; a single species, the water chevrotain, is found in the rainforests of Central and West Africa. In November 2019, conservation scientists announced that they had photographed silver-backed chevrotains in a Vietnamese forest for the first time since the last confirmed sightings in 1990.
A gazelle is one of many antelope species in the genus Gazella. There are also seven species included in two further genera; Eudorcas and Nanger, which were formerly considered subgenera of Gazella. A third former subgenus, Procapra, includes three living species of Asian gazelles.
Micromeryx is an extinct genus of musk deer that lived during the Miocene epoch. Fossil remains were found in Europe and Asia. The earliest record (MN4) of the genus comes from the Sibnica 4 paleontological site near Rekovac in Serbia.
In biostratigraphy, MN 5 is one of the MN zones used to characterize the fossil mammal faunas of the Neogene of Europe. It is preceded by MN 4 and followed by MN 6 and is part of the Orleanian age of the middle Miocene. MN 5 starts within magnetostratigraphic chron C5Cr, at 17.0 million years ago, and ends at the start of chron C5Bn.1r, at 15.0 million years ago, although some different correlations have been proposed. The reference locality used to correlate faunas with this zone is Pontlevoy-Thenay in France; other localities include La Retama in Spain, Castelnau-d'Arbieu in France, and Sandelzhausen in Germany.
The Macropodidae are an extant family of marsupial with the distinction of the ability to move bipedally on the hind legs, sometimes by jumping, as well as quadrupedally. They are herbivores, but some fossil genera like Ekaltadeta are hypothesised to have been carnivores. The taxonomic affiliations within the family and with other groups of marsupials is still in flux.
Graecopithecus is an extinct genus of hominid that lived in southeast Europe during the late Miocene around 7.2 million years ago. Originally identified by a single lower jawbone bearing teeth found in Pyrgos Vasilissis, Athens, Greece, in 1944, other teeth were discovered from Azmaka quarry in Bulgaria in 2012. With only little and badly preserved materials to reveal its nature, it is considered as "the most poorly known European Miocene hominoids." The creature was popularly nicknamed 'El Graeco' by scientists.
Hispanopithecus is a genus of apes that inhabited Europe during the Miocene epoch. It was first identified in a 1944 paper by J. F. Villalta and M. Crusafont in Notas y Comunicaciones del Instituto Geologico y Minero de España. Anthropologists disagree as to whether Hispanopithecus belongs to the subfamily Ponginae or Homininae.
Amphimachairodus is an extinct genus of large machairodonts. It is also a member of the tribe Homotherini within Machairodontinae and is most closely related to such species as Xenosmilus, Homotherium itself, and Nimravides. It inhabited Eurasia, Northern Africa and North America during the late Miocene epoch.
Crouzeliinae is an extinct subfamily of Pliopithecidae primates that inhabited Europe and China during the Miocene, approximately 8–14.5 million years ago - they appear to have originated in Asia and extended their range into Europe between 17 and 13 million years ago. Crouzeliines can be distinguished from the other Pliopithecoidea subfamilies on the basis of uniquely derived dental traits.
Microbunodon was a genus of extinct artiodactyl mammals in the family Anthracotheriidae. It lived between the upper Eocene and the lower Pliocene. Its fossil remains have been found in Europe and Asia.
Neolicaphrium is an extinct genus of ungulate mammal belonging to the extinct order Litopterna. This animal lived from the Late Pliocene (Chapadmalalan) to the Late Pleistocene (Lujanian) in southern South America, being the last survivor of the family Proterotheriidae.
Danuvius guggenmosi is an extinct species of great ape that lived 11.6 million years ago during the Middle–Late Miocene in southern Germany. It is the sole member of the genus Danuvius. The area at this time was probably a woodland with a seasonal climate. A male specimen was estimated to have weighed about 31 kg (68 lb), and two females 17 and 19 kg. Both genus and species were described in November 2019.
Tragoportax is an extinct genus of bovid ungulate. It lived from the upper Miocene to the earliest Pliocene, and its fossils have been found in southeastern Europe, parts of Africa, and the Indian subcontinent. Tragoportax was formerly considered a close relative of the extant nilgai, though more recent studies suggest that it, and several other Miocene "boselaphins", formed a tribe of their own. The number of Tragoportax species has varied over the years, and some have been reassigned to the related genus Miotragocerus. The first Tragoportax specimens were discovered in Greece, and were originally assigned to Capra. Subsequently, they were reassigned to Tragocerus. This genus name was preoccupied by a beetle, and thus Tragoportax is the correct name.
Euprox is an extinct genus of deer that lived in Eurasia during the Miocene.
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