Distinguishing between three modern Ellobius species (Rodentia, Mammalia) and identification of fossil Ellobius from Kaldar Cave (Iran) using geometric morphometric analyses of the first lower molar

Ellobius remains are common and often abundant in southeastern Europe, western central Asia archaeological sites. A correct identification of species is crucial for our understanding the evolution communities through time, including biostratigraphic sequences to be established. This study applies geometric morphometric methods (GMM) first lower molars, with objectives: 1) discriminate modern explore morphological size differences reference samples; 2) identify fossil specimens recovered sites, based on aforementioned analysis. The dataset used this paper includes belonging three that today occur Asia: fuscocapillus, E. lutescens talpinus. material comes from Late Pleistocene Iranian site Kaldar Cave (Khorramabad valley, Lorestan Province, Iran). Our shows shape anterior cap arrangement following triangles allow discriminating studied extant species. shapes fuscocapillus m1 appear rather similar, whereas talpinus well separated these two total length greater than lutescens. GMM analyses performed allowed us as some excluding