Two medium-sized deinotheres (Proboscidea: Mammalia) from the Miocene rocks of Eastern Carpathians Foreland (Romania)

Abstract

The paper summarizes the medium-sized deinothere records from Romania, improving the palaeontological data of two less-known specimens from the Eastern Carpathians Foreland. The area is famous primarily by the large deinothere of Găicena and Mânzaţi assigned to the “Deinotherium gigantissimum”. Later, several fossils of Deinotherium were documented, but they remained generally unknown, and the morphological and biometrical data were not engaged in the further deinothere comparisons. The most important specimen is a fragmentary right hemimandible with well-fossilized m1-m2, housed in the “Ion Borcea” Natural History Museum of Bacău. The p3-p4 and m3 preserved only the roots; even there are not obvious reworking signs. Furthermore, a tibia sin. fragment were firstly added. The fossil remains were unearthed from the Late Bessarabian rocks (MN 9) near Drăgeşti (Bacău County). The second specimen represents an isolated M2 sin. of Deinotherium giganteum stored at the Museum of Paleontology “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi. It was collected from a microconglomerate bed (Early Bessarabian, ?MN 7-8–MN9) cropping out in the Pietrăria Hill Quarry (Deleni, Iaşi County). The age of fossil-bearing layers was accurately documented by several mollusc assemblages.