Cymbalophus aff. cuniculus

(Fig. 6B)

MATERIAL. — m3 (R: MNHN-MU12263 [broken]; L: MNHN-CB1597) .

DISTRIBUTION. — Mutigny, Condé-en-Brie (MP8+9).

DESCRIPTION

m3 from Mutigny

The tooth is worn and broken, only the talonid is preserved. The hypoconulid lobe is very short.

m3 from Condé-en-Brie (Fig. 6B)

The metaconid is not twinned.The lophs are high and well developed. The protolophid is more notched than the hypolophid. The hypoconulid is small, the hypoconulid lobe is very short. A postcristid links the hypoconid to the hypoconulid. The cristid obliqua is oriented toward the middle of the protolophid.

COMPARISONS

The teeth have the same proportion as those of C. cuniculus . The protolophid is less developed than in C. cuniculus, and the cristid obliqua is slightly more lingual. The cristid obliqua ends higher on the protolophid than in C. aff. cuniculus from Rians (Godinot 1981). The paralophid is much shorter than in C. aff. cuniculus from Rians.

COMMENT

The dental morphology is very similar to that of C. cuniculus, except for the more lingually directed cristid obliqua which is a derived feature. However, such a character could be intraspecific variation ( C. cuniculus is not well known), or temporal and/or geographic variation within a population. The fossil record of Cymbalophus is very scarce as this genus has been recorded only from localities close to the MP7. The discovery of specimens in Condé-en-Brie and Mutigny (MP8-9) extends its range, and this allows to assume some morphological variation of the species through time. Nevertheless, considering the few fossils discovered for this species in these MP8-9 localities, and particularly in Prémontré (MP10) which has yielded a large number of specimens, we do not exclude that this is an extreme and poorly represented variation of Orolophus maldani, which is widespread in these deposits.