文摘
Our knowledge of the histology of the Cervidae (deer) was recently expanded with a work describing long bone and tooth histology of various taxa (Kolb et al., 2015a). Included in this study was the Miocene m>Procervulusm>, an early cervid whose growth rate was found to be especially low. The present study examines further “stem-cervid” bone histology in describing that of other Miocene taxa, m>Dicrocerus elegansm> and m>Euproxm> sp. With their inclusion in the dataset of Kolb et al. (2015a), we estimate the ancestral growth rates among cervids, and studied its correlation with body size. The skeletochronology of m>Dicrocerusm> suggests a relatively high growth rate for its body size differing from the condition of m>Procervulusm> and m>Euproxm>, and hence, documenting diversity in the life history traits of Miocene cervids.