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Across ancient oceans: Eocene dispersal routes of Asian terrestrial mammals to Europe, Afro-Arabia and South America

Authors

Montheil,  Leny
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Licht,  Alexis
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Beard,  K. Christopher
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Métais,  Grégoire
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Coster,  Pauline
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Vaes,  Bram
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Donnadieu,  Yannick
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Pineau,  Erwan
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Husson,  Laurent
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Dupont-Nivet,  Guillaume       
4.1 Lithosphere Dynamics, 4.0 Geosystems, Departments, GFZ Publication Database, GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences;

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Citation

Montheil, L., Licht, A., Beard, K. C., Métais, G., Coster, P., Vaes, B., Donnadieu, Y., Pineau, E., Husson, L., Dupont-Nivet, G. (2026): Across ancient oceans: Eocene dispersal routes of Asian terrestrial mammals to Europe, Afro-Arabia and South America. - Earth-Science Reviews, 273, 105352.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2025.105352


Cite as: https://gfzpublic.gfz.de/pubman/item/item_5037510
Abstract
During the middle and late Eocene, Asian terrestrial mammals dispersed to Europe, while primates and rodents dispersed across the 500-to-2000 km wide Neotethys Ocean and the 1500-to-2000 km wide Atlantic Ocean to colonize Afro-Arabia and South America. This study explores how these mammals have achieved such remarkable and enigmatic dispersals. We present high-resolution paleogeographic models for the middle to late Eocene based on updated plate kinematic reconstructions, paleo-bathymetry and paleo-topography data. With this, we evaluate landmass configurations and connectivity that may have facilitated faunal exchanges from Asia toward Europe, Afro-Arabia, and South America and discuss dispersal mechanisms between these biogeographic provinces. Our reconstructions reveal that during the Bartonian (∼40–38 Ma), an overland dispersal corridor between Asia and Balkanatolia became available to terrestrial mammals and acted as a pivotal pathway for Asian faunas dispersing toward western Europe and Afro-Arabia. We identified two Balkanatolian island-hopping routes across the Western Neotethys potentially enabling the dispersal of small-bodied Asian primates, rodents and artiodactyls to Afro-Arabia. Alternatively, these taxa may have rafted across the Central Neotethys. By ∼34 Ma, Balkanatolia fully connected with Western Europe, opening a southern “Grande Coupure” route for Asian faunas. In the Atlantic, we identify long-distance rafting as the most plausible mechanism for the 40–34 Ma transoceanic dispersal of the Asian-originated primates and rodents from Afro-Arabia to South America despite the likely presence of sparse islands along the Walvis Ridge and the Rio Grande Rise.