Orycteropus afer, MAKAPANSGAT

Lehmann, Thomas, 2009, Phylogeny and systematics of the Orycteropodidae (Mammalia, Tubulidentata), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 155 (3), pp. 649-702 : 684-685

SPECIES ORYCTEROPUS CF. AFER MAKAPANSGAT

Material: A right M 1 (M8271), and a fragment of right hemimandible with broken M 1 and complete M 2 (M8272), described by Kitching (1963) as O. cf. afer . The material is housed at the Bernard Price Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg ( South Africa).

Locality and age: Makapansgat ( South Africa), dated to between 3.06 and 3.32 Mya ( MacFadden, Brock & Partridge, 1979).

Discussion: Lehmann (2004) revised the anatomical position of the different elements as given above. The upper and lower molars are rectangular in shape, and present deep lingual and vestibular grooves. Therefore, the attribution to the redefined genus Orycteropus is confirmed. The revised dimensions of the teeth ‘are not significantly different from corresponding data obtained from extant aardvark’ (Lehmann, 2004: 313), but are large. These teeth are closer to O. afer than to O. crassidens in their size, and do not belong to O. djourabensis because they show a deep lingual groove on the upper molar. However, until further material is discovered, I recommend keeping the cautious determination made by Kitching (1963).