Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

Journal of Paleontology

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Web of Science (3) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by MAAS, M. C. Articles by THEWISSEN, J. G. M. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

A NEW ISECTOLOPHID TAPIROMORPH (PERISSODACTYLA, MAMMALIA) FROM THE EARLY EOCENE OF PAKISTAN

¹ Department of Anatomy, Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, P.O. Box 95, Rootstown 44272
² Department of Anthropology and Laboratory of Vertebrate Paleontology, University of Texas, Austin 78712
³ Department of Anatomy, Howard University, Washington D.C. 20059,
⁴ Open University of the Netherlands, P.O. Box 2960 6401 DL Heerlen, The Netherlands

A new genus and species of tapiromorph, Karagalax mamikhelensis, is described from the Eocene Mami Khel Formation of northwest Pakistan. The new species is known from adult and juvenile dentitions, juvenile skulls, and partial postcrania. It is the most primitive perissodactyl yet reported from Indo-Pakistan. The morphology of its lophodont molars indicates that Karagalax is a tapiromorph, and it is here included in the primitive family Isectolophidae. Karagalax is more derived (more lophodont) than North American isectolophids Systemodon and Cardiolophus or the Asian early Eocene Orientolophus and Homogalax wutuensis, and more primitive (less lophodont) than North American Homogalax and Isectolophus. It is distinct from the poorly known and enigmatic Indian isectolophid Sastrilophus. Karagalax lacks any derived features of the Deperetellidae, Helaletidae or Lophialetidae, including Kalakotia, a primitive lophialetid from the middle Eocene of northwest India. The partial postcrania of Karagalax, which include fragmentary humeri, femora, ulnae, tibiae and metapodials, show a combination of primitive and derived features and suggest that it was more cursorial than other basal tapiromorphs for which postcrania are known.

A provisional analysis of the phylogenetic positions of Karagalax and Kalakotia supports the hypothesis that primitive perissodactyls dispersed to Indo-Pakistan, most probably by way of continental Asia. The evolutionary position of Karagalax is consistent with an early Eocene age for H-GSP Locality 300, as argued previously on the basis of other mammals.