Generalism as a subsistence strategy: advantages and limitations of the highly flexible feeding traits of Pleistocene Stephanorhinus hundsheimensis (Rhinocerotidae, Mammalia)

The so-called Hundsheim rhinoceros, Stephanorhinus hundsheimensis, was a very common faunal element of the Early to early Middle Pleistocene period in the western Palaearctic. In this study, individuals from two different central European populations of the Hundsheim rhinoceros were analysed in order to determine whether their local dietary signals could reflect differing food availability between the two populations, and whether such information could provide a better understanding of the ecological role of S. hundsheimensis within corresponding faunal assemblages, and of its principal subsistence strategy in the western Palaearctic. The mesowear traits observed in the studied S. hundsheimensis populations have been interpreted as representing biome-specific signals, indicating grassland vegetation at the site of Süßenborn, and dense to open forests at Voigtstedt (both localities in Germany). The analyses performed on the fossil rhino material demonstrate the most pronounced dietary variability ever established for a single herbivorous ungulate species by mesowear studies. This variability ranges from an attrition dominated grazing regime, to a one of predominantly browsing, and characterises S. hundsheimensis as the most ecologically tolerant rhinoceros of the Palaearctic Plio-Pleistocene. Although such dietary flexibility proved an effective enough subsistence strategy over a period of 600–900 ka (1.4/1.2–0.6/0.5 Myr) in the western Palaearctic, the situation changed dramatically after 0.6 Myr BP, when the new species of rhinoceroses, Stephanorhinus hemitoechus and Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis, appeared and started to compete for both the grass and the browse. For the generalist S. hundsheimensis, this bilateral interference was detrimental to its success in all of its habitats. The successful competition of specialised forms of rhinoceroses, which might have originated as a result of the development of 100 ka periodicity in the global climatic record, is proposed as the main reason for the extinction of S. hundsheimensis during the early Middle Pleistocene.