The remarkable Panthera pardus (Felidae, Mammalia) record from Equi (Massa, Italy): taphonomy, morphology, and paleoecology
Section snippets
Foreword
Panthera pardus, the largest spotted cat in Africa and Asia, with several recognized subspecies, is a quite common, solitary, and opportunistic predator in the wild (Miththapala et al., 1996, Uphyrkina et al., 2001, Sunquist and Sunquist, 2002). It shows a great size variability within its range: generally speaking, in open country the animals are larger than in the forest, from 20 to 30 kg up to 90 Kg, with a large variability in food habits (Hayward et al., 2006). It can live in a wide range
The site of Equi
Equi is a small town on the northern side of the Apuane Alps (Fig. 1A–B). The topography of the area is characterized by dried environment and V-shaped fluvial valleys, even though some areas were interested by Late Pleistocene glaciation events. Evidence of small glaciers is spread most on the north-eastern side of the Apuane Alps (Braschi et al., 1986, Giraudi, 2004, Giraudi, 2011).
The Equi paleontological site is a cave and shelter located just out and above of the town, on the left side of
Materials and methods
This study focuses on the Equi leopard fossils recovered during the fieldwork by De Stefani and his team (1911–1917) and housed in the Natural History Museum, Geology and Paleontology Section, of the University of Florence (IGF), firstly described by Del Campana (1954) as P. pardus antiqua.
The Equi P. pardus collection consists in more than 200 bones (some of which are exposed in the Florence Natural History Museum permanent exhibition). Most of cranial and postcranial bones are almost
Taphonomic remarks
With a total number of 224 determined finds, Equi currently represents the most abundant collection of leopards across Europe, far exceeding the Late Pleistocene sites of Zafarraya (Barroso et al., 2003), Wildkirchli Cave (Switzerland), Baumann's Cave (Germany), the assemblage from Cueva de Los Rincones (Spain) and Caune de l’Arago and Hortus (France) (Testu, 2006, Testu et al., 2011, Diedrich, 2013, Saoqué et al., 2014a).
Adults are dominant (60% of the whole collection), followed by young
Systematic paleontology
Order Carnivora Bowdich, 1821.
Family Felidae Fischer Von Waldheim, 1817.
Subfamily Felinae Fischer Von Waldheim, 1817.
Genus Panthera Oken, 1816
P. pardus Linnæus, 1758
General overview
The site of Equi is a very rich deposit. The site has been known in literature for almost one century, but fossils and the available information about the original excavations were disconnected and never considered together. Until a recent re-evaluation analysis of the historical collection (Ghezzo et al., 2014b), the context was virtually ignored and a comparison with the new research (started since 2009) could not have been possible. On the basis of the available information from original
Conclusions
Leopards combine the power and strength of the larger cats with the grace and versatility of the smaller felinae.
For the first time from its discovery at the beginning of 19th century, the study of leopard collection from Equi allows for the definition of the morphological characterization, of a quite contemporaneous population (mid to late MIS3) within a singular context. Surprisingly, leopards from Equi were characterized by a great size variability both for cranial and limbs, maintaining
Acknowledgments
For the access to paleontological and osteological collections we are very grateful to the curators of the Natural History Museum of the University of Florence, Dr. Elisabetta Cioppi (Geological and Paleontological section) and Dr. Paolo Agnelli (Zoology section “La Specola”), the Natural History Museum of Berlin, Dr. Oliver Hampe (Vertebrate Paleontology section) and the Hungarian Natural History Museum, Prof. Mihály Gasparik (Department of Palaeontology and Geology), as well as to to Dr. P.
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2021, Quaternary InternationalCitation Excerpt :From a morphometric comparison, clear differences emerged between the studied sample and the hemimandible of the leopard. In particular, the studied fossil was morphologically compared to a fossil specimen described in Sauqué and Cuenca-Bescós (2013) (Fig. 3, p. 38) and Ghezzo and Rook (2015) (Fig. 7, p. 138). The total length of the leopard's jaw is clearly shorter than our fossil and the mesiodistal diameter of M/1 is larger than the homologue measure of fossil leopards.