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Re-Appraisal of ‘Felis’ pamiri Ozansoy, 1959 (Carnivora, Felidae) from the Upper Miocene of Turkey: the Earliest Pantherin Cat?

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Abstract

Although the divergence of the Panthera clade from other Felidae might be as old as the earliest middle Miocene, its fossil record before the Pliocene is virtually non-existent. Here we reassess the affinities of a felid from the early upper Miocene of Turkey, known by well-preserved associated upper and lower dentitions. We conclude that it belongs to the same genus (Miopanthera Kretzoi, 1938) as the middle Miocene ‘Styriofelis’ lorteti (Gaillard, 1899), and that this genus is close to, if not part of, the Panthera clade.

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Abbreviations

BSP:

Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und historische Geologie, Munich

CCEC:

Centre de Conservation et d’Etude des Collections, Lyon

MCGL:

Musée Cantonal de Géologie, Lausanne

MHNT:

Muséum d’Histoire naturelle de Toulouse

MNCN:

Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid

MNHN:

Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris

NMB:

Naturhistorische Museum Basel

SMNS:

Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde, Stuttgart

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to C. Argot, J. Lesur, G. Veron (MNHN), and D. Berthet (CCEC) for access to collections, to L. Cazes and P. Loubry for the photos, and to M. Gasparik for his help with Hungarian literature. The manuscript benefited from judicious comments by the reviewers M.J. Salesa and N. Spassov. The latter is also acknowledged for first calling the attention of DG to Miopanthera pamiri.

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  1. Centre de Recherche sur la Paléobiodiversité et les Paléoenvironnements (UMR 7207), Sorbonne Universités, MNHN, CNRS, UPMC, CP 38, 8 rue Buffon, 75231, Paris Cedex 05, France

    Denis Geraads & Stéphane Peigné

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  1. Denis Geraads
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  2. Stéphane Peigné
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Correspondence to Denis Geraads.

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Geraads, D., Peigné, S. Re-Appraisal of ‘Felis’ pamiri Ozansoy, 1959 (Carnivora, Felidae) from the Upper Miocene of Turkey: the Earliest Pantherin Cat?. J Mammal Evol 24, 415–425 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-016-9349-6

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