A team of researchers from the Department of Earth Sciences, in collaboration with Sapienza Museums, the Institute of Environmental Geology and Geoengineering - Igag-CNR and the Museum of Palaeontology at the University of Florence, found the most complete fossil of the neurocranium of Sus arvernensis, the small wild boar weighing around 50-60 kg that lived on the European continent during the Pliocene. The study, published in the journal Historical Biology, revealed unexpected similarities between the extinct wild boar and some species that now inhabit only equatorial Africa and Indonesian islands.

“For the first time, it has been possible to study in detail the neuroanatomy of an extinct wild boar," says Alessio Iannucci of the Department of Earth Sciences. "In particular, the study of the brain has allowed us to recognise common traits between the Sus arvernensis and two living species belonging to very distant branches of the suid evolutionary tree, the African Hylochoerus meinertzhageni and the Asian Babyrousa babyrussa."

The fossil is preserved inside a block of travertine, and it was only through computer tomography (CT) techniques that researchers were able to virtually extract first the neurocranium (the part of the skull containing the brain) from the encasing rock, and then the cast of the brain and other internal structures.

Thanks to modern virtual palaeontology techniques," explains Dawid A. Iurino of the Department of Earth Sciences, "we are now able to study anatomical structures that would otherwise be inaccessible without the risk of damaging rare and highly scientifically valuable artefacts such as the Collepardo skull."

The paleontological site, located near Frosinone, Lazio, central Italy, offers an extraordinary window on the ecosystems of Europe and our peninsula over 3 million years ago, when elephants, rhinos and sabre-toothed tigers also lived in a subtropical environment in Italy.

"There are only a few European fossiliferous sites of this age," concludes Raffaele Sardella of the Department of Earth Sciences, "and only a few have a similar quality of preservation: a further example of the great geo-paleontological wealth of our territory."

References:

Neurocranial anatomy of Sus arvernensis (Suidae, Mammalia) from Collepardo (Early Villafranchian; central Italy): taxonomic and biochronological implications - Alessio Iannucci, Luca Bellucci, Jacopo Conti, Ilaria Mazzini, Beniamino Mecozzi, Raffaele Sardella, Dawid Adam Iurino - Historical Biology 2021. https://doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2021.1902999

Further Information

Alessio Iannucci
Department of Earth Sciences
alessio.iannucci@uniroma1.it

Raffaele Sardella
Department of Earth Sciences
raffaele.sardella@uniroma1.it