Publication details
Miocene Snakes from Northeastern Kazakhstan: New Data on the Evolution of Snake Assemblages in Siberia
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| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Conference abstract |
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| Citation | |
| Description | The late middle Miocene vertebrate fauna form northeastern Kazakhstan (Baikadam, Malyi Kalkaman 1 and 2; ~12.7?12.1 Ma) provided the best documented Miocene snake assemblage in central Asia. In total 10 taxa belonging to three families have been reported including: Boidae: Albaneryx cf. volynicus, Boinae gen. et sp. indet.; Colubridae: Coluber cf. hungaricus, Texasophis bohemiacus, Elaphe aff. dione, cf. Elaphe sp., “Colubrinae” A, “Colubrinae” B; Viperidae: Vipera sp. (‘European vipers’ group, ‘Vipera aspis’ complex) and Gloydius sp. The occurrences of Albaneryx cf. volynicus, Coluber cf. hungaricus and Texasophis bohemiacus which were probably largely distributed in Eurasia during the Miocene support assumptions concerning possible faunal homogenity in this region during the Miocene. Although it can be also supported by occurrences of Vipera ‘Oriental vipers’ and Coluber s.l., unnamed species A from the coeval east Siberian Togay site (Oľkhon Island, Baykal Lake, Russia), the presence of most probably extinct taxa which were unrelated to known European representatives (“Colubrinae” A and B from Baikadam and Malyi Kalkaman 2) as well as taxa which never occurred in central and western Europe and which are closely related to species recently inhabiting southern Siberia (Elaphe aff. dione, Gloydius sp. from Baikadam and Malyi Kalkaman 1) indicate, that faunal dissimilarity was relatively high within Eurasia during the late middle Miocene. This assumption is in accordance with research on European mammal assemblages which show on the decreasing mammalian homogenity during the MN 5 to MN 7+8 interval. The same model can be probably applicable for the whole Eurasia. |