Abstract
Τhe functional morphology of the skull of the fossil badger Meles dimitrius from the Early Pleistocene of Greece is studied by means of comparative myological and osteological analyses with the extant representatives of the genus Meles from Europe and Asia. The myological analysis of the masticatory system allowed the reconstruction of a ‘muscle map’ of the significant muscles for feeding and prey capture for the extant Meles meles and, by analogy, for the extinct Meles dimitrius. The quantitative osteological analysis computed several functional cranial, mandibular, and dental measurements and indices, as well as endocranial volume, bite force, and body mass, in order to identify characters that could be attributed to different ecomorphs. Two main ecomorphological groups were recognized within extant Meles. One includes the mainland forms (M. meles, M. leucurus) and the other the insular populations (M. canescens from Crete and M. anakuma from Japan). Apart from its size, Meles dimitrius appears closer to the insular group, which is characterized by a relatively more developed masticatory system, a well-developed temporalis muscle, increased bite forces, increased endocranial volume and possibly a better adaptation to processing meat. The similarity of M. dimitrius with the insular group could be related to the retention of a primitive active predatory and meat-consuming behavior. Alternatively, M. dimitrius could have represented a relatively isolated population having evolved features convergently found in the insular extant badgers.
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The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We want to express our deep thanks to Dr. Petros Lymperakis (curator of the Vertebrate department of the Natural History Museum of Crete), for providing comparative material, part of the collection of the Natural History Museum of Crete (NHMC). Warm thanks to Dr. Aleksandra Panyutina (Russian Academy of Sciences, Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Moscow, Russia) for providing photographic comparative material from Mongolia and Chitinskaya (Russia), to Ph. D. Professor Senior Engineer Song Li (Kunming Natural History Museum of Zoology, Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, -Kunming, Yunnan, China) for providing photographic comparative material from China, to Associate Professor Yamato Tsuji (Ishinomaki Senshu University, Ishinomaki, Miyagi, Japan) and Associate Professor Eishi Hirasaki (Kyoto University, Primate Research Institute, Inuyama, Japan) for providing photographic comparative material from Japan.
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Savvidou, A., Youlatos, D., Spassov, N. et al. Ecomorphology of the Early Pleistocene Badger Meles dimitrius from Greece. J Mammal Evol 29, 585–607 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-022-09609-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-022-09609-5