New Hispanomeryx (Mammalia, Ruminantia, Moschidae) from Spain and a reassessment of the systematics and paleobiology of the genus Hispanomeryx Morales, Moyà-Solà, and Soria, 1981

© 2019, © by the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. We describe new specimens of the Miocene moschid Hispanomeryx, from the early Vallesian sites of Castell de Barberà (CB) and Ecoparc de Can Mata (ECM), Vallès-Penedès Basin, representing the first Iberian record of Hispanomeryx outside the inner Miocene basins. Fossils from ECM constitute Hispanomeryx lacetanus, sp. nov., the first Hispanomeryx to be described with a ‘Palaeomeryx fold (external postprotocristid).’ Fossils from CB constitute the first unambiguous record of Hispanomeryx aragonensis outside its type locality (La Ciesma-1B, Ebro Basin, Spain) and allow us to describe for the first time the upper molars of this species. Our phylogenetic analysis of Hispanomeryx places H. andrewsi from China as the sister group of a clade containing two European lineages. One of the latter places H. daamsi in a clade with the sister species H. duriensis and H. lacetanus, sp. nov., and the other groups together the two forms of H. aragonensis (type series from La Ciesma-1B plus the new material from CB). Emended diagnoses for the genus Hispanomeryx and all previously described species are presented. The new Hispanomeryx material from the Vallès-Penedès Basin constitutes the first unambiguous forest-dwelling Hispanomeryx ever recorded in Iberia, demonstrating that the previous lack of Hispanomeryx fossils in the Vallès-Penedès Basin was due to insufficient sampling rather than to paleoecological absence. It is therefore apparent that Hispanomeryx was as environmentally plastic as its relative Micromeryx, inhabiting similar habitats that varied from dry and open to humid and forested.