Can Mata indeterminate (Miocene to of Spain)

Where: Spain (41.5° N, 1.9° E: paleocoordinates 41.7° N, 1.0° E)

When: Middle Miocene to Middle Miocene (16.0 - 5.3 Ma)

• Finally, the exact stratigraphic provenance of the Can Mata material is unknown. The fossiliferous area of Can Mata is located near the town of els Hostalets de Pierola, with its Miocene outcrops recording the Middle to Late Miocene boundary. Traditionally, several loosely defined localities and isolated finds from this area were grouped into Hostalets Inferior (MN7+8) and Hostalets Superior (MN9) (Agustí et al., 1985; Golpe-Posse, 1974). More recently, many strictly defined localities have been recognized in this area, corresponding to the synthetic stratigraphic series of Can Mata (including both Abocador de Can Mata and Ecoparc de Can Mata), which range in age at least from the early MN7+8 to MN9 (Alba et al., 2006, 2011b; Casanovas-Vilar et al., 2011a; Moyà-Solà et al., 2009). Most of the old finds from Can Mata would be probably situated around the locality of Can Mata 1, which is considered to be latest Aragonian (ca. 11.2 Ma; Alba et al., 2011b; Casanovas-Vilar et al., 2011a), thus being either late MN7+8 or early MN9 in age. Therefore, it is likely that this find represents the oldest Vallès-Penedès occurrence of Machairodus, which has not been thus far recovered from the Late Aragonian (MN7+8) localities of the Abocador de Can Mata series (Alba et al., 2011b).

Environment/lithology: terrestrial; lithology not reported

Size class: macrofossils

• Can Mata: IPS30910, complete right talus.

Primary reference: J. Madurell-Malapeira, J. M. Robles, I. Casanovas-Vilar, P. Obrado, and D. M. Alba. 2014. The scimitar-toothed cat Machairodus aphanistus (Carnivora: Felidae) in the Vallès-Penedès Basin (NE Iberian Peninsula). Comptes Rendus Palevol 13(7):569-585 [M. Uhen/G. Halstead-Johnson]more details

Purpose of describing collection: general faunal/floral analysis

PaleoDB collection 190006: authorized by Mark Uhen, entered by Guinevive Halstead-Johnson on 26.11.2017, edited by Evangelos Vlachos

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

• The talus from the classical collections of CM (IPS30901) shares several characters with those of P. leo (such as a moderately large neck, and a deep and mediolaterally compressed trochlea). In these features, this taxon differs from Homotherium and Amphimachairodus, which usually display a relatively shorter talar neck, together with a narrow and mediolaterally wide trochlea (Ballesio, 1963; Berta, 1987; Merriam and Stock, 1932; Salesa et al., 2012). The characters displayed by the studied talus therefore agree with the purported less derived morphology of M. aphanistus compared with both Amphimachairodus and Homotherium.
Mammalia
 Carnivora - Felidae
Reptilia
 Testudines - Testudinidae
"Testudo (Chersine) catalaunica" = Paleotestudo antiqua
"Testudo (Chersine) catalaunica" = Paleotestudo antiqua Bronn 1831 turtle
IPS30905, IPS87219, Proximal fragments of left femur