Wessels Wilma, van de Weerd Andrew A, de Bruijn Hans, Marković Zoran
1Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, Princetonlaan 8A, 3584 CB Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Natural History Museum in Belgrade, Njegoševa 51, Belgrade, 1100 Serbia.
Paleobiodivers Paleoenviron. 2018;98(3):471-487. doi: 10.1007/s12549-017-0311-2. Epub 2018 Jan 27.
Isolated teeth of Melissiodontinae from two Eocene and four Oligocene localities in southeastern Serbia are described. One new genus and two new species are named. The study of the derived morphology of the cheek teeth and of the contrastingly primordial microstructure of the tooth enamel of this diverse material provides a glimpse into the early history of the subfamily. The supposedly Asian murid ancestor of the Melissiodontinae seems to have reached the Serbian-Macedonian land area during the early or middle Eocene, which is shortly after the split up of the Muridae and Dipodidae and before the 'Grande Coupure' of central and Western Europe. We interpret the rapid consequent specialisation of the morphology of the chewing apparatus of the Melissiodontinae as an adaptation to feeding on small invertebrates on the floor of the Eocene forest.
本文描述了来自塞尔维亚东南部两个始新世和四个渐新世地点的梅利西odontinae亚科的孤立牙齿。命名了一个新属和两个新物种。对这种多样材料的颊齿衍生形态以及与之形成鲜明对比的原始牙釉质微观结构的研究，让我们得以一窥该亚科的早期历史。梅利西odontinae亚科假定的亚洲鼠科祖先似乎在始新世早期或中期抵达了塞尔维亚 - 马其顿地区，这是在鼠科和跳鼠科分裂后不久，以及中欧和西欧“大间断”之前。我们将梅利西odontinae亚科咀嚼器官形态随后的快速特化解释为对始新世森林地面小型无脊椎动物觅食的一种适应。
