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Fossil evidence for the origin of behavioral strategies in early Miocene Castoridae, and their role in the evolution of the family

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2016

Marguerite Hugueney  and
François Escuillié
Marguerite Hugueney
Affiliation:
Centre de Paléontologie stratigraphique et de Paléoécologie de l'Université Claude-Bernard-Lyon I, associé au Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (UMR 5565), 27-43 boulevard du 11 novembre, 69622 Villeurbanne Cedex, France
François Escuillié
Affiliation:
Rhinopolis, 2 route de Moulins, 03800 Gannat, France
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Abstract

Steneofiber, an early Miocene European beaver, showed evidence of a K-strategy model of reproduction and important morphological modifications for better adaptation to a semiaquatic way of life. At the same time, a North American branch of Castoridae developed not only a parental care system but also a series of cranial and postcranial osteological adaptations to a burrowing way of life. As the North American and the European Castoridae evolved independently from each other for at least fifteen m.y., these behavioral trends seem to have been inherent in the family for a long time and have apparently promoted, up to the present time, the spread of semiaquatic forms on the two continents; on the contrary, the burrowing branch of the Castoridae rapidly vanished.

Type
Articles
Information
Paleobiology , Volume 22 , Issue 4 , Fall 1996 , pp. 507 - 513
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

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References

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