Return to search

Fossil Moles from the Gray Fossil Site, TN: Implications for Diversification and Evolution of North American Talpidae

The Gray Fossil Site (GFS) is one of the richest Cenozoic terrestrial localities in the eastern United States. This study describes the first talpid specimens recovered from the GFS. Using measurements and comparisons of dental and humerus morphology, I identify 4 talpids (Parascalops nov. sp., Quyania cf. Q. europaea, Mioscalops (= Scalopoides) sp., and an unidentified stem desman) occurring at the GFS. Humeral morphology has been used to diagnose talpid species and study relationships. A geometric morphometric analysis showed that humerus shape is highly reflective of locomotor ecology in extant talpids and allows ecological inferences for fossil talpids. Hierarchical cluster analysis using morphometric data allowed examination of similarity among taxa and helped to secondarily verify taxonomic designations for the GFS taxa. The resulting phenogram showed strong similarity to the most up-to-date molecular cladogram and actually matched phylogenetic relationships substantially better than any morphological cladistic analyses to date.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:etd-4826
Date01 May 2018
CreatorsOberg, Danielle
PublisherDigital Commons @ East Tennessee State University
Source SetsEast Tennessee State University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceElectronic Theses and Dissertations
RightsCopyright by the authors.

Page generated in 0.0016 seconds