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| Reconstruction of a hunting scene in the Cerro de los Batallones during the Late Miocene: Machairodus aphanistus killed a three-toe horse of the genus Hipparion. in Salesa, Hernández, Marín, Siliceo, ... et García-Fernández, 2024. Artwork by Mauricio Antón |
Abstract
The Late Miocene natural traps of Cerro de los Batallones (Madrid, Spain) have yielded thousands of fossils of vertebrates, mostly carnivoran mammals such as hyaenids, amphicyonids, ailurids, mustelids, ursids, and felids, especially Batallones-1 and Batallones-3. Among these carnivorans, the tiger-sized saber-toothed felid Machairodus aphanistus was the top predator of the association, and one of the most abundant taxa, represented by thousands of fossils, including several examples of bone pathologies that have never been studied. In this work, we carry out a paleopathological analysis of some of these pathologies from the Batallones sample of this large early machairodontine, with a description of the pathological changes that occurred in the affected bones, a possible diagnosis, and the ethological and ecological consequences of the presence of these diseases in the living animal. The pathological sample of M. aphanistus studied here included a calcaneus and a Mc III from Batallones-1, and a mandible from Batallones-3. The fossils were X-rayed, and their pathologies were described and compared to non-pathological bones. The calcaneus showed a bone callus indicative of osteitis/osteomyelitis or a tumor; the mandible had evidence of the development of an abscess located in the left mandibular body; and the Mc III shows a marked osteosclerosis. These injuries affected the hunting ability of these individuals and gradually weakened them, very likely contributing to their final entrapment in the Batallones cavities, where they were attracted by the presence of previously trapped animals.
Keywords: Bone pathology, Cenozoic, Felidae, Paleontology
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| Reconstruction of a hunting scene in the Cerro de los Batallones during the Late Miocene: two adult males of Machairodus aphanistus have subdued and killed a three-toe horse of the genus Hipparion. Artwork by M. Antón |
Manuel J. Salesa, Bárbara Hernández, Pilar Marín, Gema Siliceo, Irene Martínez, Mauricio Antón, María Isabel García-Real, Juan Francisco Pastor and Rosa Ana García-Fernández. 2024. New insights on the Ecology and Behavior of Machairodus aphanistus (Carnivora, Felidae, Machairodontinae) through the Paleopathological Study of the Fossil Sample from the Late Miocene (Vallesian, MN 10) of Cerro de los Batallones (Torrejón de Velasco, Madrid, Spain). Journal of Mammalian Evolution. 31, 21. DOI: 10.1007/s10914-024-09721-8
