0000000000220891
AUTHOR
P. Mazza
Structural changes in Italian Late Pliocene - Pleistocene large Mammal assemblages
A schematic range-chart of the late Pliocene - Pleistocene large mammal genera is presented. The main faunal events recognizable within this time span are discussed. The first faunal event occurs around the Gauss/Matuyama transition with the beginning of the middle Villafranchian characterized by the arrival of Mammuthus (Archidiskodon) and Equus (the so-called "elephant-Equus event"). The following faunal event occurs at the Plio-Pleistocene transition (the so-called "wolf event"). The latter is marked by a strong contraction in the diversity of the ruminants and by a renewal in the carnivore diversity with the arrival of social carnivores. The low diversity in ruminant assemblage persist …
The Abruzzo-Apulian (Central and Southeastern Italy) fossil fauna, new challenges for paleontologists and paleobiogeographers
The Abruzzo-Apulian Platform was an endemic Neogene paleobioprovince. Its relics can be found at the south-east of the Italian Peninsula. Geological and paleontological traces of this past land crop out both in the central Apennines, Maiella (Scontrone fossiliferous site), as well as in the Gargano Promontory. The Scontrone paleofauna -Scontrone is placed on the southern borderline of the Abruzzo National Park, Central-Southern Apennine. The bone-bearing sediments are coastaltidal-flat calcarenites stratigraphically dated to the Lower Tortonian. They yielded remains of terrestrial mammals, which include the bizarre ruminant Hoplitomeryx and the giant insectivore Deinogalerix, of a large ter…