Over the last 10,000 y, humans have manipulated fallow deer populations with varying outcomes. Persian fallow deer (Dama mesopotamica) are now endangered. European fallow deer (Dama dama) are globally widespread and are simultaneously considered wild, domestic, endangered, invasive and are even the national animal of Barbuda and Antigua. Despite their close association with people, there is no consensus regarding their natural ranges or the timing and circumstances of their human-mediated translocations and extirpations. Our mitochondrial analyses of modern and archaeological specimens revealed two distinct clades of European fallow deer present in Anatolia and the Balkans. Zooarchaeological evidence suggests these regions were their sole glacial refugia. By combining biomolecular analyses with archaeological and textual evidence, we chart the declining distribution of Persian fallow deer and demonstrate that humans repeatedly translocated European fallow deer, sourced from the most geographically distant populations. Deer taken to Neolithic Chios and Rhodes derived not from nearby Anatolia, but from the Balkans. Though fallow deer were translocated throughout the Mediterranean as part of their association with the Greco-Roman goddesses Artemis and Diana, deer taken to Roman Mallorca were not locally available Dama dama, but Dama mesopotamica. Romans also initially introduced fallow deer to Northern Europe but the species became extinct and was reintroduced in the medieval period, this time from Anatolia. European colonial powers then transported deer populations across the globe. The biocultural histories of fallow deer challenge preconceptions about the divisions between wild and domestic species and provide information that should underpin modern management strategies.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2023
Since the description of Isisfordia duncani, a number of new extinct species and revisions of previously described species have prompted a variety of contradicting phylogenetic hypotheses on the topology of Neosuchia. As a consequence, a consensus on the rooting of Eusuchia in relation to other neosuchian clades has not been reached and the origin of the group remains unsettled. Exemplifying this, Bernissartia fagesii, from the Early Cretaceous of Belgium, has long been considered a key taxon for understanding the origin of Eusuchia, but more recent hypotheses found support for a more basal position, as an ally to goniopholidids, paralligatorids or atoposaurids. Because many details of the anatomy of the type specimen are hidden by glue and the sediment adhering to the fossils, a number of characters are pending confirmation. Based on computed tomography data, we extract bones of the cranium and mandibles, describe new characters and re-evaluate anatomical details in the lectotype specimen. Our phylogenetic analysis confirms that B. fagesii is a derived neosuchian, unrelated to atoposaurids, goniopholidids and paralligatorids. We recover B. fagesii and Koumpiodontosuchus aprosdokiti in a basal position within Eusuchia, together with Susisuchidae, a group of gondwanan neosuchians containing Susisuchus and Isisfordia, which here form a polytomy with Hylaeochampsidae. The presence/absence of pterygoid-bound internal choanae cannot be used to fully resolve relationships at the neosuchian–eusuchian transition because of the variability of this character even at the familial level, as recently reported within susisuchids and bernissartiids. There is no doubt that true eusuchians were present in Laurasia as early as the Early Cretaceous, the hylaeochampsid Hylaeochampsa vectiana being the oldest (Barremian) undoubted representative. But whether the Eusuchia were also present in southern landmasses depends on solving the phylogenetic position of susisuchids and other less known gondwanan forms within or outside Eusuchia.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2020
