China’s evolution centre of tapirs is in Yunnan

Experts from China and foreign countries have recently suggested: During the period of Middle-late Miocene, Yunnan was China’s tapirs’ evolution centre, as remains of tapirs have been found in such places as Zhaotong, Kaiyuan, and Lufeng in Yunnan.
Tapirs originated in the early period of Eocene in North America (about 53,000,000 ~ 36,500,000 years ago). They were small in body type, and later, evolved into peculiar animals in America and Eurasia. In China, we did not find many tapir fossils of the period from the late Miocene to the early Pliocene epoch. In 1978, Mo Zhuang and other people from the Beijing Nature Museum, with the help of Yunnan No. 143 coal geology team, dug up some mammal fossils in Yongle Lignite Mine of Zhaotong. According to the stubs of inferior maxilla of some tapir fossils, they established a new species, Yunnan tapir, and they thought its geological age was Post-Pliocene about 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 years ago. Yet, this discovery did not arouse enough notice, so the field and office research work was suspended for many years.
Since 2007, in cooperation with the Pennsylvania University of US, Yunnan Province’ Cultural Relic Archaeological Exploitation Institute discovered the inferior maxilla fossil of tapirs while surveying the Shuitangba lignite pit of Taiping Township, Zhaoyang District, Zhaotong City. For the first time, they confirmed the stratigraphic position of the colony; thus, it triggered a series of large-scaled excavations and important discoveries, including the ancient elephant’s skeleton, the ancient ape’s skull and many well-protected specimens of Yunnan tapirs, making the ancient ape fossil site of Zhaotong become the place with the richest tapir fossils in Yunnan.
The discovered specimens are very rare stuff for studying the evolution of tapirs in the end period of Miocene. According to the preliminary study, Yunnan tapirs and their close relatives might have been the direct ancestors of the tapirs in the late Cenozoic period, and the distribution times of Yunnan tapirs continued for about 5,000,000 years altogether. In the current number of Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, a researcher has published a paper, believing that in the period of middle and late Miocene, Yunnan was the evolution centre of tapirs of China.

 

Chinas evolution centre of tapirs is in Yunnan

Experts from China and foreign countries have recently suggested: During the period of Middle-late Miocene, Yunnan was Chinas tapirs evolution centre, as remains of tapirs have been found in such places as Zhaotong, Kaiyuan, and Lufeng in Yunnan. Tapirs originated in the early period of Eocene in North America (about 53,000,000 ~ 36,500,000 years ago). They were small in body type, and later, evolved into peculiar animals in America and Eurasia. In China, we did not find many tapir fossils of the period from the late Miocene to the early Pliocene epoch. In 1978, Mo Zhuang and other people from the Beijing Nature Museum, with the help of Yunnan No. 143 coal geology team, dug up some mammal fossils in Yongle Lignite Mine of Zhaotong. According to the stubs of inferior maxilla of some tapir fossils, they established a new species, Yunnan tapir, and they thought its geological age was Post-Pliocene about 2,500,000 to 3,000,000 years ago. Yet, this discovery did not arouse enough notice, so the field and office research work was suspended for many years. Since 2007, in cooperation with the Pennsylvania University of US, Yunnan Province Cultural Relic Archaeological Exploitation Institute discovered the inferior maxilla fossil of tapirs while surveying the Shuitangba lignite pit of Taiping Township, Zhaoyang District, Zhaotong City. For the first time, they confirmed the stratigraphic position of the colony; thus, it triggered a series of large-scaled excavations and important discoveries, including the ancient elephants skeleton, the ancient apes skull and many well-protected specimens of Yunnan tapirs, making the ancient ape fossil site of Zhaotong become the place with the richest tapir fossils in Yunnan. The discovered specimens are very rare stuff for studying the evolution of tapirs in the end period of Miocene. According to the preliminary study, Yunnan tapirs and their close relatives might have been the direct ancestors of the tapirs in the late Cenozoic period, and the distribution times of Yunnan tapirs continued for about 5,000,000 years altogether. In the current number of Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, a researcher has published a paper, believing that in the period of middle and late Miocene, Yunnan was the evolution centre of tapirs of China.