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Miocene and Pliocene amphibians from Hambach (Germany): new evidence for a late Neogene refuge in northwestern Europe: Fossil amphibians from Hambach
Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP-CERCA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Edifici ICTA-ICP, c/ Columnes s/n, Campus de la UAB, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain.
Natural Sciences Collections, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Domplatz 4, 06108 Halle (Saale), Germany.
Swedish Museum of Natural History, Department of Paleobiology.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2268-5824
2024 (English)In: Palaeontologia Electronica, ISSN 1935-3952, E-ISSN 1094-8074, Vol. 27, no 1, article id 27.1.a3Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The Hambach lignite mine in northwestern Germany is a renowned fossil locality, which has yielded remains of several vertebrates dated back to the Middle Miocene and the Late Pliocene. Among these is a recently-described and peculiar proteid urodele, Euronecturus grogu, currently known only from the Middle Miocene level in Hambach. Here, we provide detailed descriptions and identifications of the remaining fossil amphibians (both urodeles and anurans) from the Hambach mine, in total identifying at least 12 Middle Miocene taxa (Cryptobranchidae indet., Palaeoproteus cf. miocenicus, E. grogu, Chelotriton sp., Lissotriton sp., Triturus sp., Latonia sp., ?Palaeobatrachidae indet., Pelobatidae indet., Hyla sp., Pelophylax sp., Rana sp.) and at least nine Late Pliocene ones (Palaeoproteus cf. miocenicus, Mioproteus cf. wezei, Lissotriton sp., Latonia sp., Palaeobatrachus eurydices, cf. Eopelobates sp., Hyla sp., Bufo gr. bufo, Ranidae indet.). The high diversity of amphibians in both Miocene and Pliocene levels at Hambach supports a very humid climate persisting in the area for most of the Neogene, possibly originating a refugium for these animals in northwestern Europe that persisted until the Late Pliocene (and possibly even the Early Pleistocene). Urodeles such as Palaeoproteus and Mioproteus and anurans such as Latonia, the palaeobatrachids, and possibly Eopelobates are all significant occurrences in such a northern latitude at the end of the Pliocene, a period when southward withdrawal of thermophilic animals as well as the first effects of a deteriorizing climate ultimately leading to the Quaternary glaciation had already started in the European continent.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
London, 2024. Vol. 27, no 1, article id 27.1.a3
Keywords [en]
Urodela, Anura, Middle Miocene, Late Pliocene, Lower Rhine Embayment, Rhine-Meuse system
National Category
Other Earth Sciences
Research subject
Ecosystems and species history; The changing Earth
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:nrm:diva-5679DOI: 10.26879/1323OAI: oai:DiVA.org:nrm-5679DiVA, id: diva2:1912211
Funder
German Research Foundation (DFG), SFB 350
Note

We gratefully acknowledge the continuous support of the mining company RWE POWER AG (Cologne) during fieldwork in the Hambach mine.

L.M. received support from the SYNTHESYS Project (FR-TAF 2486 and HU-TAF 2724) and is funded by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation through a Humboldt Research Fellowship.

A.V. was funded by a Humboldt Research Fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación through a Juan de la Cierva-Formación grant (FCI2019-039443-I/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) during part of the development of this work. He is now supported by the Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca of the Departament de Recerca i Universitats, Generalitat de Catalunya, through a Beatriu de Pinós postdoctoral grant (2021 BP 00038).

This paper is part of R+D+I project PID2020-117289GB-100, funded by the Agencia Estatal de Investigación of the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/).

A.V. further acknowledges support by the CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya and the Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca of the Generalitat de Catalunya (2021 SGR 00620).

T.M. was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) Special Research Project SFB 350.

Available from: 2024-11-11 Created: 2024-11-11 Last updated: 2025-09-12Bibliographically approved

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Publisher's full texthttps://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2024/5077-fossil-amphibians-from-hambach

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