title: First Miocene rodent from Lebanon provides the 'missing link' between Asian and African gundis (Rodentia: Ctenodactylidae).
abstract: Ctenodactylinae (gundis) is a clade of rodents that experienced, in Miocene time, their greatest diversification and widest distribution. They expanded from the Far East, their area of origin, to Africa, which they entered from what would become the Arabian Peninsula. Questions concerning the origin of African Ctenodactylinae persist essentially because of a poor fossil record from the Miocene of Afro-Arabia. However, recent excavations in the Late Miocene of Lebanon have yielded a key taxon for our understanding of these issues. Proafricanomys libanensis nov. gen. nov. sp. shares a variety of dental characters with both the most primitive and derived members of the subfamily. A cladistic analysis demonstrates that this species is the sister taxon to a clade encompassing all but one of the African ctenodactylines, plus a southern European species of obvious African extraction. As such, Proafricanomys provides the 'missing link' between the Asian and African gundis.
authors.affiliation: 1] School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom [2] Departamento de Paleobiología, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales-CSIC, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Raquel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: López-Antoñanzas
authors.affiliation: 1] School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom [2] Departamento de Paleobiología, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales-CSIC, Madrid, Spain [3] School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Fabien
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Knoll
authors.affiliation: UMR 6538 Domaine Océanique, Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, France.
authors.forename: Sibelle
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maksoud
authors.affiliation: Natural Sciences Department, Faculty of Sciences II, Lebanese University, Fanar, Lebanon.
authors.forename: Dany
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Azar
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa; D000818:Animals; D044466:Asian People; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005580:Fossils; D006801:Humans; D007861:Lebanon; D010802:Phylogeny; D012377:Rodentia / Q000145:classification*