The afro-arabian component in the levantine mammalian fauna-a short biogeographical review

Abstract

The dramatic transformation of the southern Lev ant during the Miocene from a tropical domain into a southern province of the Palearctic region is what makes this region so interesting and focuses the attention of many scholars. Unfortunately, only partof those events can be traced in the fossil record. The great diversity of the southern Levantine biotas and its extreme biogeographical heterogeneity, the existence of animal species and human forms originating in distant biotic provinces, is primarily the product of the Afro-Eurasian Neogene-Quatemary biotic interchanges, resulting from the drawing up of the northern edge of the Afro-Arabian continent against the margin of the Eurasian continental body by subduction along the present Anatolian-Iranian tectonic suture line. The kaleidoscopic admixture of Palearctic, Paleotropic and Saharo-Arabo-Sindian elements changes constantly during the Neogene and the Quartemary periods, disposing now and then of a new biogeographical configuration.Indeed, ever since the Miocene, the southern Levant witnessed intensive geological events with a long range of paleobiogeographical effects. A priori its geographical location the Levantine region was intermittently used as a landbridge between Eurasia and Africa. The extensive plate tectonics which split Arabia and Trans-Jordan from Cis-Jordan and Sinai, and those plates from Africa, constantly modified the internal biotic configuration of the region. The Levant as a playground for northward-southward shifting of Afro-tropical vs Palearctic elements, largely in correlation with the Neogene-Quatemary climatic fluctuations, intermingled those biotic units. Thus, the establishment and obliteration of barriers occasionally shut and opened the southern Levantine gates for northern (European), eastern (Asiatic), and southern (Afro-Arabian) biotic, as well as hominid, invasions.Progressive desiccation of the whole region was the principal climatic trend in the Levant This shift towards a growing aridity became a major factor in causing the extinction of many Afrotropical and Palearctic elements and the increased separation between tropical Africa and Eurasia. The impact of the glacial period and the close proximity of a large desert domain have played a very complicated role in the distribution of Levantine plants, animals, and humans, and constantly reshaped the biotic gradients between Palearctica and the eremian belt Therefore, the timings of the geological settings, the documentation of the paleontological record, the faunal history, and the cultural events in the Levantine region during these periods are crucial to the understanding of the organismic relationships between the Old World continents. © 1992 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.