Fossils from 6.2 million years ago reveal the origins of Sumatran rabbits

Science and Technology Daily News (Reporter Zhao Hanbin) reporter recently learned from the
Institute of Paleoververtebrates and Paleoanthropology and the Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, they worked with Harvard University and other institutions to identify the 6.2 million-year-old long-fold sumatran rabbit fossils found in Zhaotong Reservoir Dam in Yunnan Province, there are new discoveries.researcher Deng Tao, director of
China
Institute of Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, said that sumatra and Southeast Asia's live striped rabbits, also known as Sumatran rabbits, are distributed in the Baritan Mountains to the west of Sumatra Island, because of the large number of tropical rainforests they live in felled, habitat was seriously damaged, so it is classified as a critical species. The origin of striped rabbits remained unresolved until 1986, when Qiu Casting and Han Defen discovered the late Neo-New Winged Rabbit in Lufeng, believed to be the ancestral type of Sumatran rabbit.
To further study the late-generation mammal population in Yunnan, the
Institute of Paleontology, in cooperation with the Yunnan Institute of Archaeology and the Zhaotong Municipal Government, has participated in a number of universities and museums in the United States to carry out strata surveys and fossil excavations in the Zhaotong region. In March 2015, a precious rabbit-shaped jaw bone fossil was collected in a 6.2 million-year-old black carbon peatstone at Zhaotong Reservoir Dam during a field excavation led by Deng Tao's ancient spine.
The shape of this fossilized front molar indicates that the late Neolithic rabbits were the early representatives of the striped rabbits that now live in wet areas, i.e. sumatran rabbits, while the long-winged rabbits found earlier in Lufeng, Yunnan Province, belong to the same species as the fossils found in Zhaotong, so they were renamed long-fold Sumatran rabbits, and they were found in the wet marshlands of Lufeng and Zhaotong.
Deng Tao introduced, combined with some other preserved incomplete specimens found in Zhaotong Reservoir Dam, as well as previously found in Lufeng lime dam materials, this discovery and identification to clarify the origin of sumatran rabbit, a mysterious rabbit-shaped species played an important role, and thus reconstructed the evolutionary history of Sumatran rabbit, that is, after the emergence of the genus 8 million years ago, then spread rapidly throughout Southeast Asia, and eventually to the present-day Sumatran region.