Character, Age and Ecology of the Hezheng Biota from Northwestern China

1 Introduction In recent years, field works in the Hezheng area resulted in an explosive growth of new knowledge of Chinese mammalian faunas of the Late Cenozoic. A continuous sedimentary sequence from the Oligocene to the Pleistocene is developed and exposed in the Linxia Basin, Gansu Province, which contains a large number of mammal fossils. The Hezheng area comprises almost the whole Hezheng County, the western half of Guanghe County, the southern half of Dongxiang County, Linxia C…

Character, Age and Ecology of the Hezheng Biota from Northwestern China

The Hezheng area Of Gansu Province produces the most abundant mammal fossils in China as well as the whole Eurasia, and it also produces other Cenozoic fossils of different animals and plants. Therefore, all of them are named the Hezheng Biota. Mammals are very sensitive to environmental changes, and thus the evolution of mammalian faunas in the Hezheng area reflects the strong uplift of the Tibetan Plateau during the Late Cenozoic, which dramatically affects environmental changes. In the Hezheng area, micromammals are not very rich, but some of them still are important. It is relatively uncommon that three primates are found from the Middle Miocene and the Early Pleistocene deposits. Since the Middle Miocene, carnivores have become important components in the ecosystem of the Hezheng area, and dominated in the Early Pleistocene. The Middle Miocene is a time of high diversity for Proboscidea, characterized by shovel-tusked elephants. Perissodactyls in the Hezheng area are very abundant, especially Late Oligocene and Late Miocene rhinoceroses as well as the Late Miocene and Early Pleistocene horses. From the Middle Miocene, artiodactyls became important components of the mammalian faunas, especially bovids.