Melaneremia, Hooker, 2007

Hooker, Jerry J., 2012, A new omomyid primate from the earliest Eocene of southern England: First phase of microchoerine evolution, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 57 (3), pp. 449-462 : 457-458

Relevance of Melaneremia to European biostratigraphy

The Woolwich Formation is spanned by an acme of the dinoflagellate Apectodinium that proxies the PETM ( Collinson et al. 2009). Underlying this formation locally in Kent is the Cobham Lignite Bed, which records a negative carbon isotope shift that marks the onset of the PETM ( Collinson et al. 2003; Pancost et al. 2007). The occurrence of Melaneremia schrevei in the upper part of the Woolwich Formation, the upper shelly clay unit ( Hooker et al. 2009), therefore links its occurrence to the later part of the PETM.

Two isolated teeth, a p4 and an m2, from the Conglomérat de Meudon, Vaugirard Formation of Meudon, Paris Basin, figured by Godinot et al. (1998: pl. 11.1: k, l) bear a striking resemblance to the same teeth of M. schrevei , suggesting that they are conspecific. The m 2 in particular shows spacing of the paraconid and protocristid identical to that of M. schrevei . The p4 differs slightly in having a crestiform paraconid. The mammal fauna of Meudon formed the basis of mammal Biozone PE II ( Hooker 1996a), and the apparent occurrence of M. schrevei at both Meudon and Croydon suggests attribution of the Croydon fauna to the same zone. The underlying Biozone PE I is based on the mammal fauna of Dormaal, Belgium, which is correlated to the early part of the PETM ( Steurbaut et al. 1999). Dormaal and other PE I sites contain a different, more primitive omomyid, Teilhardina belgica . The more derived species of Melaneremia , M. bryanti , occurs in the Black−

http://dx.doi.org/10.4202/app.2011.0017

heath Formation, which overlies the Woolwich Formation in the London Basin and whose mammal fauna has formed the basis of Biozone PE III ( Hooker 1996a, 2010). Zone PE II is therefore tentatively anchored to the later part of the PETM, correlating approximately with the lower part of Wasatchian Zone Wa−1 of the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, USA. As the omomyids at this time in Europe and North America are more different than in the early part of the PETM, this appears to be when a restriction to dispersal and the beginning of differentiation took place. This is rapid given the 170 ky extent ( Sluijs et al. 2007a) of the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum.