Quantitative morphological analysis of bovid teeth and implications for paleoenvironmental reconstruction of Plovers Lake, Gauteng Province, South Africa

This method was applied to a sample of fossil bovid teeth previously identified as “medium-sized alcelaphine” from Plovers Lake, Gauteng Province, South Africa. Precise taxonomic identification of these alcelaphines result in the earliest recorded presence of Alcelaphus buselaphus and Connochaetes gnou in Gauteng Province, as well as potentially the earliest documented co-occurrence of these taxa alongside Connochaetes taurinus and Damaliscus dorcas in South Africa. Revising the paleoenvironment reconstructed for Plovers Lake suggests that it was likely not much more densely wooded than the area today. This contradicts the paleoenvironment previously inferred for the site, suggesting that overreliance on rare and/or small-bodied taxa in the initial report on Plovers Lake overemphasized the extent of woodlands that were indicated.