A SHORT HISTORY OF PALEONTOLOGY IN TURKEY, PART II: PALEONTOLOGY IN THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY

ABSTRACT Succeeding a period of wars and political turmoil, the reassuring policies of the new regime of Turkey positively influenced all branches of science, including geology which provided a basis for the earliest studies in paleontology, as it had done in the former Ottoman Turkey. Although most of the specialists were still foreigners during the early years of the republic, the government of Turkey under the leadership of Atatürk, rapidly established modern institutions in order to train native earth scientists and engineers of all sorts. Turkish paleontologists began to replace their foreign colleagues by the 1940s; and female Turkish paleontologists became especially prominent not only in the universities but also in the national geological surveys and mapping, and in fossil fuel exploration. Subsequent to their separation from departments of natural sciences, teaching fundamentals of paleontology was taken on by geology departments which, by the 1960s, started to evolve into departments of geological engineering. As a result, most Turkish paleontologists are geologists and most of them specialized either in micropaleontology or paleobotany. In contrast, paleontology of late Cenozoic mammals is dominated by graduates of anthropology programs.

Dome-headed, small-brained island mammal from the Late Cretaceous of Romania

The island effect is a well-known evolutionary phenomenon, in which island-dwelling species isolated in a resource-limited environment often modify their size, anatomy, and behaviors compared with mainland relatives. This has been well documented in modern and Cenozoic mammals, but it remains unclear whether older, more primitive Mesozoic mammals responded in similar ways to island habitats. We describe a reasonably complete and well-preserved skeleton of a kogaionid, an enigmatic radiation of Cretaceous island-dwelling multituberculate mammals previously represented by fragmentary fossils. This skeleton, from the latest Cretaceous of Romania, belongs to a previously unreported genus and species that possesses several aberrant features, including an autapomorphically domed skull and one of the smallest brains relative to body size of any advanced mammaliaform, which nonetheless retains enlarged olfactory bulbs and paraflocculi for sensory processing. Drawing on parallels with more recent island mammals, we interpret these unusual neurosensory features as related to the island effect. This indicates that the ability to adapt to insular environments developed early in mammalian history, before the advent of therian mammals, and mammals with insular-related modifications were key components of well-known dwarfed dinosaur faunas. Furthermore, the specimen suggests that brain size reduction, in association with heightened sensory acuity but without marked body size change, is a novel expression of the island effect in mammals.