JOUR.GEOL.SOC.INDIA, VOL.84, SEPT. 2014 352 MUHAMMAD AKBAR KHAN AND OTHERS Cervid remains from the Middle Siwaliks of Hasnot (Late Miocene), Pakistan MUHAMMAD AKBAR KHAN 1* , MUHAMMAD AKHTAR 1 and GEORGE ILIOPOULOS 2 1 Palaeontology laboratory, Department of Zoology, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan 2 Department of Geology, University of Patras, 26504 Rio, Patras, Greece *Email: akbaar111@yahoo.ca; akbaar111@gmail.com Abstract: The late Miocene-early Pliocene fossil deposits of Hasnot in northern Pakistan have yielded a very rich vertebrate fauna. In this paper we describe the remains of Cervidae from six of these localities. By dental remains, at least four species of cervids are documented. These remains significantly widen the time distribution of the cervids and draw back the first appearance of cervids in the Dhok Pathan Formation of the Siwaliks. The data indicate a diverse set of coexisting ungulates in the area, subsisting within a mosaic of habitats. Keywords: Cervidae, Cervus, Siwaliks, Dhok Pathan Formation, Late Miocene, Pakistan. (Akhtar, 1992; Khan, 2008; Khan et al., 2007, 2008, 2009) (Table 1). The Hasnot area is located on the east bank of river Bunha, about 32° 49' N, 73° 18' E, roughly 70 km west of Jhelum (Fig 1A). More than thirteen localities are known in the vicinity of Hasnot village, along the Bunha river, which flows west of the Hasnot village (Fig. 1B). The richest areas are along the north and the west banks of the river and cover a large area (ca. 8 km 2 ) with more than ten known fossiliferous locations (H 6-8, 11, 12, 14 and 23). On the basis of biostratigraphy, the fauna has been dated at about 7-5 Ma, which corresponds to the latest Miocene and early Pliocene (Pilbeam et al., 1977; Khan et al., 2009). The new Hasnot material presented shows that the cervids already had substantial diversity in the Siwaliks by the latter part of the late Miocene (Fig. 2). The significance of this study is to shed new light on the age of the Siwalik cervids. MATERIAL AND METHODS The material includes the newly collected specimens from the Hasnot area during field trips from 2003 to 2009 by the Palaeontology team of the Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan. The studied material is housed in the Paleontology Laboratory of the Zoology Department of the Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan. Comparisons of specimens were made with those at the Natural History Museum, America (AMNH), the Geological Survey of Pakistan INTRODUCTION Until know, cervids of the sub-continental Siwaliks have been known only from Pleistocene deposits by a few outdated works, such as Lydekker (1876, 1880), Brown (1926), Matthew (1929), Colbert (1935), Azzaroli (1954) and Arif et al. (1991a, b). Since then, more discoveries, and large-scale excavations recently conducted in the Dhok Pathan Formation, Hasnot area of northern Pakistan, have significantly improved the collections (Khan et al., 2010). Nevertheless, the late Miocene to early Pliocene cervids are poorly known in the Siwaliks of the sub- continent, as it is only known from rare occurrences of dental remains. A recent paper dealing with the early Pliocene cervids of the Siwaliks (Ghaffar et al., 2010) has shed new lights on the palaeobiogeography of the Siwalik cervids. In northern Pakistan, the late Miocene localities are abundant mostly in the Dhok Pathan Formation of the districts Jhelum and Chakwal. Most of these have been studied in detail and the fossil record for this period is now complete (Akhtar, 1992; Bhatti, 2004; Ghaffar, 2005; Khan M. A., 2007; Farooq et al., 2007a-d, 2008; Khan et al., 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010; Khan A. M., 2010). The Hasnot faunas are becoming increasingly better known, after the classic monograph of Colbert (1935), followed by the recent systematic studies on Suidae (Pickford, 1988), Tragulidae (Farooq et al., 2007a-d, 2008), Giraffidae (Bhatti, 2004), Cervidae (Ghaffar, 2005; Khan, 2007; Ghaffar et al., 2010), Euidae (Ghaffar et al., 2006) and Bovidae JOURNAL GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF INDIA Vol.84, September 2014, pp.352-360 0016-7622/2014-84-3-352/$ 1.00 © GEOL. SOC. INDIA