Exceptional Paleontological Collections in Vienna

On April, I had the privilege of visting during one week the paleontological collection of the Natural History Museum of Vienna (NHM, Austria). This short secondment was possible thanks to the competitive Synthesys project which is funded by the European Commission (AF-TAF-TA4-09).

NHM is renowned for housing an impressive and very well-preserved number of fossil bones and teeth of extinct mammals from Europe and other continents. Particularly of lagomorphs, the institution curates remains belonging to the Oligocene-Miocene stem-lagomorphs and ochotonids from Mongolia (Valley of Lakes) that include holotypes. My visit there had the objective of reviewing the remains of these extinct species but from a new non-taxonomical perspective.

The one-week secondment was very fruitful, and I hold in my hands material of Amphilagus, Ordolagus, Sinolagomys, Bohlinotona, Bellatona, and more. I took photos as well as several measurements on teeth and postcranial bones. This so exceptional collection of Mongolian lagomorph was possible thanks to the efforts of Dr. Margarita Erbajeva and Dr. Gudrun Daxner-Höck, who carried out the field campaigns and later classified all the material. Following my stay, I contacted and invited them to participate in the study that I will carry out with the data compiled in NHM. They were very happy to know that this material could be used to deep into the paleobiology of past lagomorphs, and they were fully predisposed to help me in the project.

Stay tuned because we will present preliminary results regarding Sinolagomys in the annual congress of the Spanish Society of Paleontology in Valencia this October!