Moscow. 6 September. INTERFAX.RU – An almost complete skull of a fossil giant hyena, pachycrocuta, was discovered for the first time in Europe in a cave that was accidentally discovered three years ago during the construction of a highway in Crimea. This was reported by the press service of the Crimean Federal University (KFU) on Monday.
“Before that, paleontologists found in Europe only fragments of skulls and individual teeth of this predator. Earlier, only one such skull was found in Russia in Transbaikalia. Two more similar ones from China are known all over the world,” the press release says.
Paleontological work is carried out within the framework of a cooperation agreement between the Crimean Federal University and the Borisyak Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The hyena, to which the skull belonged, occupies an intermediate evolutionary position between the late European hyenas and the earlier Asian ones.
“Thanks to new findings, we have a chance to finally determine what position the ancient hyena from Crimea occupies on the evolutionary tree of hyenas of Eurasia,” said a senior researcher at the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, a researcher at the Laboratory of Natural Science Methods in Humanitarian Research at the Ural Federal University Dmitry Gimranov. His words are quoted by the press service of the KFU.
Other unique specimens found this season are the partially preserved skull of an ancient lynx and the canine tooth of the Homotherium saber-toothed cat.
“The finding of an almost complete lynx skull also provides additional opportunities for clarifying its systematic position. And a whole gomotherium tusk, reaching almost 10 cm, allows us to clarify the list of saber-toothed predators of Eastern Europe in the early Pleistocene (1.8 – 0.8 million years). Over millions of years fragile fossil objects manage to break, and we are left with only fragments, so a whole canine tooth is also a great success, “Gimranov said.
The expert added that new data on flora and fauna in the vicinity of the Tavrida cave during the early Pleistocene period could provide an analysis of the remains of rodents found there. Through the study of small mammals, plant remains and analysis of the cave's soils, scientists will be able to characterize the natural conditions of the savannas, which dominated the region 1.8-1.5 million years ago.
“This season, we also made a detailed topographic survey of the cave and established in detail its morphology: all protrusions, depressions and changes in the relief. Morphological analysis is now being carried out. Both morphological and paleontological studies are being conducted in order to fully reconstruct the climate and other elements of the natural environment. The preliminary analysis showed that the climate in Crimea was hot and arid. But the parameters of the natural conditions of the ancient fauna must be clarified and substantiated, “added Gennady Samokhin, senior lecturer of the Department of Geosciences and Geomorphology of the Crimean Federal University.
As reported, several tons of bones of ancient animals that lived in Crimea before the onset of the ice age were found in a cave discovered during the construction of the Tavrida highway near the village of Zuya in the Belogorsk region of Crimea in the summer of 2018. Among them are the bones of ancient elephants, camels, bears, horses, dogs, rhinos, the remains of small animals – rodents, amphibians, birds.
Scattered bones were found in different parts of the cave, the length of its explored part exceeded one kilometer.
In 2020, cavers found 400-500 meters of new passages.
The four-lane Tavrida highway runs from the Crimean bridge in Kerch to Sevastopol.
