Pannonicola, 1965

Rekovets, Leonid, Maul, Lutz Christian, Kovalchuk, Oleksandr, Barkaszi, Zoltán & Nesin, Valentin, 2024, Pannonicola And Ischymomys - What Makes The Difference? About Two Genera Close To The Base Of Arvicolinae (Cricetidae, Rodentia), Fossil Imprint 80 (2), pp. 181-189 : 182

Pannonicola

Kretzoi (1965) erected a new genus and species, Pannonicola brevidens KRETZOI, 1965 , based on one m2 and one m3, each from the site of Jászladány in Hungary, a fossiliferous segment of a drill core of a deep borehole in ocean sediments of Miocene age. These molars were morphologically more primitive and older than all arvicoline remains found up to that time. In Kretzoi’s (1965: 137, translated from German by LM) opinion, “ Pannonicola … can be regarded as the first – already known – true arvicolid… Its clear arvicoloid molar construction plan excludes all types of arvicoloid tooth construction that have so far been regarded as direct ancestors of the arvicolids, which were able to produce molar construction plans from more recent deposits that, despite their «microtoid» tendency, ultimately represent lateral specialisations of the «buissonant» (= bushlike) cricetid family tree.” The age of the site was given as upper Pannonian, determined from the index fossil Congeria triangularis found in surrounding sediments ( Kretzoi 1965: 132). In his later synthesis of the vole phylogeny, Kretzoi (1969: 163, 169) also placed Pannonicola at the base of the Arvicolinae evolutionary lineage because, despite its unusual for Arvicolinae brachyodonty, it displays a clearly prismatic bauplan, with pointed triangular prisms in the occlusal pattern. However, a big obstacle to systematically positioning the new Hungarian form and comparing it with other taxa was the absence of the first lower molar (m1), which is so decisive for the diagnosis of Arvicolinae . Pannonicola brevidens remained the only species of the genus. In later years, further single teeth of Pannonicola were reported from Hungary, in particular from Sümegprága, and Nyarad ( Kretzoi 1976, Kordos 1994, Bernor et al. 1999).