Abstract
The holotype of the Tenerife (Canary Islands) giant rat, Canariomys bravoi, an almost complete cranium from the Late Pleistocene site of Cueva de las Palomas, is described for the first time. This species is characterized by its large size, robust skull with a short rostrum, dorsal inflation at the level of the infraorbital foramen, and moderately high-crowned upper molars which develop partial stephanodonty at advanced wear stages. Canariomys tamarani from Gran Canaria Island, the only other species of this genus known so far, is slightly smaller and further differs in its higher crowned molars with cusps arranged in a lamellar pattern. However, their crania are remarkedly similar and present a distinctive anatomy of the zygomatic plate, which is very high on the rostrum, so that its dorsal border is nearly on level with the zygomatic process of the maxilla instead of considerably below it as usually seen in murines. This is also observed in other insular, often large-sized, murines but certainly evolved in parallel as an adaptation to herbivory. Molar morphology is congruent with recent analyses of ancient molecular data of C. bravoi which place it in the tribe Arvicanthini (mostly African murines), more concretely within the Arvicanthis niloticus species complex. Even though genetic data indicate that both species diverged very recently, just 650,000 years ago, cranial and dental anatomy of C. bravoi are very derived. Conversely, C. tamarani presents a molar morphology reminiscent of that of A. niloticus albeit associated with a similarly highly derived cranial anatomy.
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All data associated to this manuscript are provided in the main text. A 3D model of the studied specimen is available at MorphoSource (https://www.morphosource.org/media/000404739). All fossil material is housed and adequately curated at the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, being accessible by other researchers.
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Acknowledgements
This publication is part of project I+D+i PID2020-117289GBI00 funded by MCIN/ AEI/ https://doi.org/10.13039/501100011033/ and has also been funded by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (RYC-2013-12470 to I.C.V), the Generalitat de Catalunya (CERCA Programme and 2017 SGR 116), the Operational Programme Research, Development and Education—Project “Postdoc@MUNI” (À.H.L.: No. CZ.02.2.69/0.0/0.0/16_027/0008360), and the ‘Programa Postdoctoral Beatriu de Pinós de la Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Empresa i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya’ (À.H.L.: 2019 BP 00154). We sincerely thank two anonymous reviewers as well as associate editor M. Arnal and editor-in-chief D. Croft for their suggestions and constructive comments which certainly helped to improve this work.
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Casanovas-Vilar, I., Luján, À.H. Description of the Type Specimen of the Extinct Tenerife Giant Rat (Canariomys bravoi). J Mammal Evol 29, 645–661 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-021-09594-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-021-09594-1