A new look at Eurasian Neogene Pliohyracidae (Afrotheria, Hyracoidea) with descriptions of unpublished fossils from Turkey and a reassessment of the Montpellier hyracoid molar

The Pliohyracidae is a family of Hyracoidea that dispersed throughout Africa and much of low-latitude Eurasia during the middle Miocene to Plio-Pleistocene, having been recorded from Namibia, East Africa, Tunisia and Morocco, and from Spain in the west to China in the east, via France, Greece, Turkey, Georgia, Iran, Kazakhstan, and Russia, but curiously never from the Indian Subcontinent or southeast Asia. Fossils of this family were frequently confused with chalicotheres, but the discovery of more complete specimens gradually led to elucidation of their hyracoid affinities. On occasion fossils of other taxa were included in the family, notable some suids and chalicotheres which complicated their interpretation. The aim of this paper is to describe some unpublished fossils from Turkey, and to re-interpret some specimens from Turkey and France that have proven to be of enigmatic systematic and phylogenetic affinities.