Late Pleistocene arctic fox (Alopex lagopus) from Crimea, Ukraine

The teeth and bone fragments of Alopex lagopus of early Weichselian age from Mousterian layers of grotto Prolom 2 in Crimea have been studied. The Crimean fossil arctic fox was found to be smaller than the late Weichselian subspecies, A. l. rossicus, from the East European Plain, but it seems to be similar in dimensions to the recent insular subspecies, A. l. spitzbergenensis. From the latter, the Crimean arctic fox differs in the relatively longer carnassial teeth and relatively wider m1. In the Late Pleistocene of Europe, a progressive increase in size of A. lagopus is observed, that makes it possible to recognize two subspecies, stratigraphically replacing one another. The arctic fox from Prolom 2 is presumably referable to the subspecies A. l. meridionalis, while the animals from another Crimean Upper Paleolithic site, Siuren 1, are referred to A. l. fossilis.