This article was accepted into the corpus but its outbound wikilinks were never NER-processed — typical at the deepest BFS hop or when the run's entity cap was reached. No expansion funnel to show.
| Neogene mammals | |
|---|---|
| Name | Neogene mammals |
| Fossil range | Miocene–Pliocene |
| Kingdom | Animalia |
| Phylum | Chordate |
| Class | Mammalia |
| Subdivision ranks | Major groups |
Neogene mammals The Neogene mammalian fauna comprises the diverse mammals that lived during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, a time of major faunal turnover associated with tectonic events and climatic shifts. Researchers study Neogene mammals through fossil-bearing formations, biochronology, and molecular clock analyses connected to institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution, the Natural History Museum, London, and universities like University of California, Berkeley and University of Cambridge.
The term covers mammalian taxa occurring in the geological intervals defined by the International Commission on Stratigraphy divisions of the Neogene period, bounded by the Oligocene and the Pleistocene. Paleontologists including Othniel Charles Marsh, Edward Drinker Cope, and later workers at the American Museum of Natural History and the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle used stratigraphic frameworks such as the Miocene Mammal Zones and the European Land Mammal Ages to correlate faunas across regions. Chronostratigraphic correlation often invokes events like the Messinian Salinity Crisis and calibrations against magnetic polarity timescales developed at institutions such as the International Union of Geological Sciences.
Neogene intervals saw major diversification in groups including Proboscidea (elephant relatives), Perissodactyla (horses, rhinos), Artiodactyla (ruminants, suids), Carnivora (bears, felids), Rodentia (squirrels, beavers), Lagomorpha (rabbits), and various Chiroptera lineages. Adaptive radiations produced iconic taxa like Mammut-grade proboscideans, hipparionine Equidae, and machairodontine Felidae documented by paleontologists at the Field Museum and the Royal Ontario Museum. Trends toward hypsodont dentitions, cursorial limb morphologies, and increased body mass link to studies by evolutionary biologists such as George Gaylord Simpson and comparative anatomists at the Royal Society. Convergent forms illustrate biogeographic parallels recognized by researchers affiliated with the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
Tectonic events—closure of the Tethys Sea, uplift of the Andes, and the formation of the Isthmus of Panama—facilitated migrations and the Great American Biotic Interchange connecting North and South America. Faunal exchange events are reconstructed from localities like Siwalik Hills, the Tortonian strata of Europe, and the Pisco Formation of Peru, with implications for dispersal routes also discussed at seminars hosted by Society of Vertebrate Paleontology and published in journals associated with the National Academy of Sciences. Continental connections and barriers influenced endemic radiations in regions such as Africa, Eurasia, and South America.
Changing climate during the Neogene—global cooling trends, expansion of C4 grasslands, and shifts in monsoon systems—drove evolutionary responses documented by climatologists at IPCC-related research centers and paleoecologists at the Max Planck Society. Isotopic studies using oxygen and carbon signatures from tooth enamel were pioneered in labs linked to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the University of Arizona, revealing dietary shifts correlated with spread of grassland biomes in regions like the Great Plains and the East African Rift System. Faunal adaptations to aridity and seasonality are recorded in deposits such as the Siwaliks and the La Venta locality.
Important Neogene fossil sites include the La Brea Tar Pits, the Siwalik Group, the Gomphothere beds of Nebraska, the Pisco Formation, Llanos Orientales exposures, and the Gobi Desert localities excavated by teams from American Museum of Natural History and the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology. Famous specimens from these sites are curated in institutions like the Natural History Museum, London and the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, and have been described by researchers publishing in venues such as the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology and proceedings of the Royal Society.
Regional extinctions and turnovers at the end of the Neogene preconditioned faunal assemblages for the Pleistocene glaciations; these dynamics intersect with later extinction debates involving megafauna like Mammuthus and large carnivores such as Smilodon discussed by scientists at the University of Oxford and the University of Michigan. Anthropogenic impacts during the Holocene overlay the end-members of Neogene legacy as analyzed by paleoecologists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and conservation groups like IUCN.
Approaches combine classical stratigraphy from organizations like the Geological Society of America with molecular phylogenetics using datasets generated at centers such as the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the Broad Institute. Molecular clock estimates calibrated against Neogene fossils reconcile divergence times for clades including Cetacea, Perissodactyla, and Rodentia in studies led by researchers affiliated with Harvard University and the University of California, Los Angeles. Techniques such as paleoproteomics, ancient DNA recovery, and computed tomography scanning are employed in laboratories at the Natural History Museum, London and the Smithsonian Institution to interrogate morphology, phylogeny, and functional adaptations.
Category:Neogene paleontology Category:Mammalogy Category:Fossil mammals