A mandible of Tapirus arvernensis from Central Italy

Luca Pandolfi (*) & Tassos Kotsakis (*)
(*) Dipartimento di Scienze, Sezione di Scienze Geologiche, Università degli Studi "Roma Tre", L.go S. L. Murialdo 1, I-00146 Roma, Italy. Corresponding author e-mail: luca.pandolfi@uniroma3.it.

A fragmentary mandible of Tapirus housed at Museo di Paleontologia, Sapienza Università di Roma, was indicated as collected at Castel San Pietro (Rieti) and/or Nera Montoro (Terni), representing the southernmost occurrence of the taxon in Italy and suggesting a Pliocene age for the locality of the discovery. A careful analysis of the fossil records of tapir in Italy and the collection of several bibliographic sources revealed that the specimen was instead discovered at Spoleto (Perugia), within the lignite mines of Morgnano and Santa Croce, and it was donated to the Museo di Paleontologia in 1895. Therefore, Tapirus has been never recorded at Nera Montoro, which yielded remains of Anancus arvernensis, or Castel San Pietro, which instead yielded remains of A. arvernensis and Stephanorhinus etruscus.

Tapirus, lignite beds, collection, biochronology.