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<p>The late Early Miocene site of Buluk, Kenya, has yielded a rich mammalian fauna comprised of about 30 species in 20 genera, notably including a stem cercopithecoid and a range of primitive hominoids. This temporal interval is poorly represented in Africa but is important because it coincides with the Miocene Climatic Optimum (MCO), a previous period of global warming tied to a carbon excursion. As the only late Early Miocene fossiliferous locality in eastern Africa that falls within the MCO, Buluk is of singular value to paleontological studies for increasing understanding of faunal responses to climate change and related ecological transformations. Paleobotanical, geochemical, and dental isotopic investigations indicate that Buluk was a C<sub>3</sub>-dominated woodland ecosystem with a strongly seasonal subhumid to subarid climate and overall greater rainfall than at present. Depositional circumstances are primarily channel fills associated with a large fluviatile system with water transport of vertebrates over a limited distance, probably denoting an autochthonous fauna. The most abundant large mammals in the fauna are proboscideans. Comparative morphological and metric study of the proboscidean assemblage reveals the co-occurrence of at least six genera and species from three higher taxa, Deinotheriidae and the elephantimorph families Mammutidae and Gomphotheriidae. Three of these species are new, one of them marking the earliest appearance of <i>Protanancus</i>. Deinotheres and archaeobelodonts are equally the most common proboscidean taxa in the assemblage. Such diversity of megaherbivores was not unusual for African Miocene sites and may have been accommodated by faunal differences from modern conditions, resource partitioning, and physical competitive displacement. The relatively diminutive size of molars of proboscideans in the assemblage, most pronounced among female elephantimorphs, may have constituted coordinated dwarfing in response to either increasing temperatures or stresses on resources caused by the MCO.</p>

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A remarkably diverse proboscidean assemblage from Early Miocene Buluk, Kenya

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  • 发表日期：

    2026年4月30日

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  • William J. Sanders,
  • Ellen R. Miller,
  • Martin K. Muthuri,
  • Timothy G. Ibui,
  • Pauline M. Mbatha,
  • Adam N. Rountrey,
  • Isaiah O. Nengo

摘要

The late Early Miocene site of Buluk, Kenya, has yielded a rich mammalian fauna comprised of about 30 species in 20 genera, notably including a stem cercopithecoid and a range of primitive hominoids. This temporal interval is poorly represented in Africa but is important because it coincides with the Miocene Climatic Optimum (MCO), a previous period of global warming tied to a carbon excursion. As the only late Early Miocene fossiliferous locality in eastern Africa that falls within the MCO, Buluk is of singular value to paleontological studies for increasing understanding of faunal responses to climate change and related ecological transformations. Paleobotanical, geochemical, and dental isotopic investigations indicate that Buluk was a C3-dominated woodland ecosystem with a strongly seasonal subhumid to subarid climate and overall greater rainfall than at present. Depositional circumstances are primarily channel fills associated with a large fluviatile system with water transport of vertebrates over a limited distance, probably denoting an autochthonous fauna. The most abundant large mammals in the fauna are proboscideans. Comparative morphological and metric study of the proboscidean assemblage reveals the co-occurrence of at least six genera and species from three higher taxa, Deinotheriidae and the elephantimorph families Mammutidae and Gomphotheriidae. Three of these species are new, one of them marking the earliest appearance of Protanancus. Deinotheres and archaeobelodonts are equally the most common proboscidean taxa in the assemblage. Such diversity of megaherbivores was not unusual for African Miocene sites and may have been accommodated by faunal differences from modern conditions, resource partitioning, and physical competitive displacement. The relatively diminutive size of molars of proboscideans in the assemblage, most pronounced among female elephantimorphs, may have constituted coordinated dwarfing in response to either increasing temperatures or stresses on resources caused by the MCO.