Abstract
The unique geological, geophysical, and tectonic setting of the Indian Subcontinent created a theater of evolution that provided a relatively insulated refuge for origination and early diversification of many Mesozoic and early Cenozoic age vertebrate groups. This phenomenon continued into the Miocene Epoch in association with developing physical barriers: mountains, major river systems, and oceanic borders. The terrestrial barriers were semi-permeable filters that allowed differential passage of select organisms, and endemic evolution of certain clades. Muroid rodents of modern grade are a group that evolved by the earliest Miocene, in part endemically after they appeared on the subcontinent. One endemic muroid lineage led to the Murinae, extant mice and rats, and the semi-isolated physical setting of India and Pakistan promoted local evolution of murines during the middle Miocene, prior to their dispersion throughout Eurasia and beyond around ten million years ago. Here we note dental morphological features that appeared early in the evolution of Murinae to document the divergence of two major clades leading to extant murines. Their earliest presumed members are morphologically similar in older samples before clear taxonomic separation of molar phenotypes.
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Acknowledgments
We are pleased to contribute to this volume in honor of Professor Ashok Sahni. Professor Sahni has encouraged diverse lines of research throughout his career, all the while promoting international collaborations. We much appreciate his example in fostering scientific advancement. Some of the ideas developed here took root when our friend I. U. Cheema discovered the hypodigm of Progonomys hussaini . We acknowledge the help of all field collaborators of the Geological Survey of Pakistan and the Pakistan Museum of Natural History, and from various institutions in the United States, especially our small mammal colleague, Will Downs, whose efforts made this study possible. Roy Beavers of Southern Methodist University skillfully produced the SEM images for this paper. Evaluations by David Pilbeam and two reviewers stimulated improvement of the study, and we thank the editors of this volume for their help and encouragement. Financial support was provided by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP15H06884 (Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists Start-up) and JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 18K13650. NSF grant EAR 0958178 to D. Pilbeam, C. Badgley and T. Cerling supported a portion of the research.
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Flynn, L.J., Kimura, Y., Jacobs, L.L. (2020). The Murine Cradle. In: Prasad, G.V., Patnaik, R. (eds) Biological Consequences of Plate Tectonics. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49753-8_15
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