Bover Pere, Rofes Juan, Bailon Salvador, Agustí Jordi, Cuenca-Bescós Gloria, Torres Enric, Alcover Josep Antoni
IMEDEA (CSIC-UIB), Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies, Department of Biodiversity and Conservation, Balearic Islands, Spain.
Research Associate Division of Vertebrate Zoology/Mammalogy Department, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA.
Integr Zool. 2014 Mar;9(2):183-196. doi: 10.1111/1749-4877.12049.
The vertebrate fossil record from the Balearic Islands (western Mediterranean) has improved considerably over the past decade, especially in Mallorca and Menorca. In Menorca, the Pliocene terrestrial fauna was updated by the discovery and description of the large-sized leporid Nuralagus, several reptiles and an amphibian. In Mallorca, paleontological exploration yielded 2 deposits with a Late Miocene/Early Pliocene chronology, Caló den Rafelino (CdR) and Na Burguesa-1 (NB-1). So far, 4 new mammalian taxa and 2 new reptiles have been identified for the CdR deposit, whereas the faunal assemblage from the recently discovered deposit (Apr 2012) of NB-1 is currently composed of, at least, 6 terrestrial mammals, 8 reptiles and an amphibian. Its faunal composition and some primitive characteristics of the obtained taxa suggest that the chronology of this deposit is slightly earlier than the CdR. The terrestrial vertebrates recorded in these 2 Mallorcan deposits are changing the view of the paleofaunal assemblage previously known for the Plio-Pleistocene of the island. Morphological characteristics displayed by some of the taxa suggest that these faunas would be at the beginning of an isolated evolution. In this paper we present a preliminary report on the fossils recovered from the NB-1 deposit, as well as some unpublished data from CdR, and we analyze the whole fauna from both Mallorcan deposits, focusing on taxonomical and paleobiogeographical aspects.
过去十年间，来自巴利阿里群岛（地中海西部）的脊椎动物化石记录有了显著改善，尤其是在马略卡岛和梅诺卡岛。在梅诺卡岛，上新世陆生动物群因大型兔科动物努拉兔、几种爬行动物和一种两栖动物的发现与描述而得到更新。在马略卡岛，古生物学勘探发现了两个具有晚中新世/早上新世年代学特征的沉积层，即卡洛·德·拉斐利诺（CdR）和纳布尔盖萨 - 1（NB - 1）。到目前为止，已为CdR沉积层鉴定出4个新的哺乳动物类群和2种新的爬行动物，而最近发现的NB - 1沉积层（2012年4月）的动物群组合目前至少由6种陆生哺乳动物、8种爬行动物和一种两栖动物组成。其动物群组成以及所获类群的一些原始特征表明，该沉积层的年代略早于CdR。这两个马略卡岛沉积层中记录的陆生脊椎动物正在改变人们此前对该岛上新世 - 更新世古动物群组合的看法。一些类群所显示的形态特征表明，这些动物群处于孤立进化的开端。在本文中，我们展示了从NB - 1沉积层中 recovered 的化石的初步报告，以及CdR的一些未发表数据，并分析了这两个马略卡岛沉积层的整个动物群，重点关注分类学和古生物地理学方面。 （注：原文中“recovered”前似少了个词，根据语境猜测可能是“所发现”之类的意思，这里按大致意思翻译为“发现的”）
