Author's personal copy Fossil remains of Macaca sylvanus florentina (Cocchi, 1872) (Primates, Cercopithecidae) from the Early Pleistocene of Quibas (Murcia, Spain) David M. Alba a, * , Juan Abel Carlos Calero b , Miguel Ángel Mancheño b , Plini Montoya c , Jorge Morales d , Lorenzo Rook e a Institut Català de Paleontologia, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Edifici ICP, Campus de la UAB s/n, 08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain b Departamento de Química Agrícola, Geología y Edafología, Universidad de Murcia Campus de Espinardo, 30100 Murcia, Spain c Àrea de Paleontologia, Departament de Geologia, Universitat de València, c/ Doctor Moliner 50, 46100 Burjassot, València, Spain d Departamento de Paleobiología, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC, c/ José Gutiérrez Abascal 2, 28006 Madrid, Spain e Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Firenze, via G. La Pira 4, 50121 Firenze, Italy article info Article history: Received 22 December 2010 Accepted 13 September 2011 Keywords: Barbary macaque Dentition Taxonomy Cercopithecoidea Iberian Peninsula Plio-Pleistocene abstract The macaque material from the Early Pleistocene site of Quibas (Albanilla, Murcia, Spain), including dentognathic remains, isolated teeth and some postcranial bone fragments, is described. Both metrically and morphologically, this sample must be attributed to Macaca sylvanus (the Barbary macaque). This species is currently distributed through North Africa and Gibraltar, but was much more widely distributed during the Plio-Pleistocene, being represented by several European fossil subspecies. Metrical compari- sons of dental size and proportions between extant M. s. sylvanus and fossil Macaca sylvanus florentina from the type locality and other Italian sites are undertaken, in order to classify the remains from Quibas at the subspecies level. The results show that the Quibas sample not only fits the range of variation of M. s. florentina from the type locality, but also differs from the extant Barbary macaque condition in several regards. This permits us to formally attribute the material from Quibas to M. s. florentina. The material described in this paper therefore significantly improves the knowledge of this fossil taxon, particularly regarding the upper dentition, and further confirms the taxonomic distinctiveness of this extinct taxon at the subspecies rank. Taken as a whole, M. s. florentina largely overlaps in dental dimensions with M. s. sylvanus, but differs from the latter by displaying (on average): (1) absolutely longer upper molars (especially M 1 and M 3 ); (2) relatively wider upper molars (especially M 1 and M 2 ); (3) longer M 3 as compared with the M 2 ; (4) absolutely longer M 1 and M 3 ; and (5) relatively narrower M 3 . Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Introduction European fossil macaques The macaque lineage, which apparently diverged from other Papionini by about 7 Ma (millions of years ago) (Stewart and Disotell, 1998), is first recorded in Europe in the latest Miocene (Köhler et al., 2000), and persists through the Pliocene and Pleistocene (Fooden, 2007). There is consensus that fossil European macaques belong to the Macaca sylvanus (Linnaeus, 1758) lineage, of African origin. According to molecular studies, M. sylvanus is the sister taxon of other extant species of this genus (Morales and Melnick, 1998) otherwise known exclusively from Asia. Current knowledge of the geographic variation of the Barbary macaque is insufficient to warrant the recognition of extant subspecies (Fooden, 2007). On the contrary, with the exception of Macaca majori, Plio-Pleistocene macaques from Europe are customarily referred to several subspecies of M. sylvanus. The latter is currently represented by the nominotypical subspecies in North Africa, where they display a disjunct distribution in the Atlas and Rif Mountain ranges in Algeria and Morocco (Fooden, 2007), as well as in Gibraltar. The latter population is undoubtedly of anthro- pochorous origin (Groves, 2001; Fooden, 2007; Masseti and Bruner, 2009), apparently resulting from repeated introductions in histor- ical times. Romans occasionally imported these monkeys into Europe as pets or curiosities (Masseti and Bruner, 2009), but the present Gibraltar population is more likely descended from individuals of mixed Algerian-Moroccan origin that were introduced during the 20th century (Modolo et al., 2005). With regard to fossil European macaques, three extinct Euro- pean subspecies are customarily recognized, following Szalay and Delson (1979) and Delson (1980): Macaca sylvanus prisca Gervais, * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: david.alba@icp.cat (D.M. Alba), jabelcc@yahoo.es (J.A. Carlos Calero), cheno@um.es (M.Á. Mancheño), pmontoya@uv.es (P. Montoya), mcnm166@mncn.csic.es (J. Morales), lorenzo.rook@unifi.it (L. Rook). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Human Evolution journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhevol 0047-2484/$ e see front matter Ó 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2011.09.003 Journal of Human Evolution 61 (2011) 703e718