 Reference Base  Sur la longevite, en Afrique du Nord, du genre Rhinoceros... |
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Arambourg, C., 1931. Sur la longevite, en Afrique du Nord, du genre Rhinoceros pendant la periode quaternaire. Compte Rendu des Seances de l'Academie des Sciences, Paris 124: 1044-1046
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| Location: |
Africa |
| Subject: |
Taxonomy - Evolution |
| Species: |
White Rhino |
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There are two species of rhinoceros known in fossil state in the Quaternary of Northern Africa: Rhinoceros Mercki Kaup (= Rh. subinermis Pomel) and Rhinoceros simus Burch. (= Rh. mauritanicus Pomel). Both are found in the archaic fauna of the inferior and middle Pleistocene, where they are found next to elephant and hippopotamus, and these forms have been usedto characterize the old layers of the Quaternary.
In 1927, Royer found, among fossils excavated in a neolithic cave at Adrar Gueldaman near Alkbou (Constantine), the presence of the genus Rhinoceros, with an isolated piece of bone from one of the limbs.
During the following year, de Beaumais, looking at remains in the same caves, found on two different occasions and in two different locations, a fourth metatarsal of an adult rhinoceros, and a medial metacarpal of a young animal of the same genus. These were found in paleolithical layers.
More recently (1929), in a cave of the upper Paleolithic in the region of Bougie, in a relatively recent layer of the Ibero-Maurisian, I again found a first phalange of a rhinoceros next to other bones which were discarded by humans.
This is similar to an observation made in 1923 by Doumergue, in de cave of Guethna (Oran), where that author found a third phalange of the same genus in a neolithic area with ornamental pottery.
Although these remains are insufficient for determination, all are close to Rh. simus. Their presence in elevated layers in the stratigraphic series shows that a rhinoceros lived in Northern Africa until a relatively recent era.
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