LAUSR

ABSTRACT The family Palaeotheriidae (Perissodactyla, Equoidea) was one of the most abundant and successful Eocene mammalian groups from western Europe. Equoid perissodactyls were diverse in the Iberian Peninsula, with the presence of six genera and 19 species (mainly palaeotheres) which are unknown elsewhere in Europe. In this work, an overview of the Eocene Iberian equoid fossil record is summarised in the context of the European palaeobiogeography, including the updating of the endemic palaeotheriid taxa. The persistence of the endemism in the western Iberian region during the late Eocene could be due to an ecological barrier. There are significant dental pattern differences between the endemic Iberian and the other European palaeotheriid taxa. These differences may be the results of dietary strategies different from those of contemporary European faunas. Some dental features might indicate that the environmental changes driven by the climatic cooling of the latest Eocene in western Europe could have started earlier in western Iberia.