Cerro de los Batallones

A baculum of Indarctos arctoides found at Batallones-3.

Cerro de los Batallones (Hill of the Battalions) is a hill at Torrejón de Velasco, Madrid, Spain where a number of fossil sites from the Upper Miocene (MN10) have been found.^[1]^[2]^[3] Nine sites have been discovered with predominantly vertebrate fossils, invertebrates and plants being less represented. The first deposits were discovered accidentally in July 1991.

Batallones-10 (B-10) is considered to contain the oldest representative of fossils.^[3]

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Fossils

Nearly the entire proportion of fossils of Batallones-1 were of Carnivorans.^[4] The species of sabre-tooth cat known as Promegantereon ogygia and Machairodus aphanistus (the first complete skull)^[5] were found at B-1,^[6] as was Simocyon a type of red panda.^[7] In regards to the saber-tooth cats, Batallones-1 represents an ideal site for recording the percentage of specimens for which breakage of the upper canines occurred. Promegantereon, Machairodus and Paramachaerodus are perfect examples of this at Batallones; fossils indicate a high number of canine breaks from where the teeth hit the bones of a struggling victim, indicating these early machairodonts would use their elongated teeth to subdue prey as modern big cats do.^[8]

A new species of Hispanomys (Rodentia) was found at various sites.^[3] A new species of Micromeryx (deer) was found at B-1 and B-10.^[9]

Fauna

Below is a list of notable fossil genera from Cerro de los Batallones.^[10]

Artiodactyla

Carnivora

†Ammitocyon kainos^[11]
†Amphicyon major
†Eomellivora piveteaui
†Indarctos arctoides
†Leptofelis vallesiensis
†Machairodus aphanistus & M. alberdiae
†Magericyon anceps & M. castellanus
†Promegantereon ogygia
†Protictitherium crassum
†Simocyon batalleri

Perissodactyla

Proboscidea

†Tetralophodon longirostris

Rodentia

†Hispanomys

Notes

^ Domingo et al. 2011
^ Morales, Alcalá & Álvarez-Sierra 2004
^ ^a ^b ^c López-Antoñanzas et al. 2010
^ Peigné et al. 2008
^ Antón et al. 2004
^ Salesa et al. 2006
^ Peigné et al. 2005
^ Anton, Mauricio (2013). Sabertooth.
^ Sánchez, Domingo & Morales 2009
^ Antón, Mauricio (2013). Sabertooth. Bloomington, Indiana: University of Indiana Press. p. 52. ISBN 9780253010421.
^ Morales et al. 2021[1]

References

Domingo, MS; Domingo, L; Sánchez, IM; Alberdi, MT; Azanza, B; Morales, J (January 2011). "New Insights on the Taphonomy of the Exceptional Mammalian Sites of Cerro de los Batallones (Late Miocene, Spain) Based on Rare Earth element Geochemistry". PALAIOS. 26 (1): 55–65. doi:10.2110/palo.2010.p10-047r. S2CID 129590339.
López-Antoñanzas, R; Peláez-Campomanes, P; Álvarez-Sierra, MA; García-Paredes, I (December 2010). "New species of Hispanomys (Rodentia, Cricetodontinae) from the Upper Miocene of Batallones (Madrid, Spain)". Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. 160 (4): 725–47. doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.2010.00618.x.
Antón, M; Salesa, MJ; Morales, J; Turner, A (2004). "First known complete skulls of the scimitar-toothed cat Machairodus aphanistus (Felidae, Carnivora) from the Spanish late Miocene site of Batallones-1". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 24 (4): 957–969. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2004)024[0957:FKCSOT]2.0.CO;2.
Morales, J; Alcalá, L; Álvarez-Sierra, M (June 2004). "Paleontología del sistema de yacimientos de mamíferos miocenos del Cerro de los Batallones, Cuenca de Madrid". Geogaceta (35). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-07-11.
Peigné, S; Salesa, MJ; Antón, M; Morales, J (2005). "Ailurid carnivoran mammal Simocyon from the late Miocene of Spain and the systematics of the genus" (PDF). Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 50 (2): 219–238. OCLC 716595914.
Peigné, S; Salesa, MJ; Antón, M; Morales, J (July 2008). "A New Amphicyonine (Carnivora: Amphicyonidae) from the Upper Miocene of Batallones-1, Madrid, Spain". Palaeontology. 51 (4): 943–65. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4983.2008.00788.x.
Salesa, MJ; Antón, M; Turner, A; Morales, J (March 2006). "Inferred behaviour and ecology of the primitive sabre-toothed cat Paramachairodus ogygia (Felidae, Machairodontinae) from the Late Miocene of Spain". Journal of Zoology. 268 (3): 243–254. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7998.2005.00032.x.
Sánchez, IM; Domingo, MS; Morales, J (2009). "New data on the Moschidae (Mammalia, Ruminantia) from the upper Miocene of Spain (Mn 10–Mn 11)". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 29 (2): 567–575. doi:10.1671/039.029.0223. S2CID 84973629.