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The “Diahot Tooth” is a Miocene rhinocerotid fossil brought by humans to New Caledonia

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Abstract

The “Diahot Tooth” is an isolated postcanine tooth of a large herbivorous mammal, discovered in the Diahot region of northern New Caledonia in 1875. Most authors have identified it as an upper premolar of a rhinocerotid, but an alternative proposal is that it belongs to a diprotodontoid marsupial that has been named Zygomaturus diahotensis. Either possibility raises biogeographical difficulties, because New Caledonia has been isolated from other major landmasses for 80 million years, and neither rhinocerotids nor diprodotontoids appear to be good candidates for such a long-distance overwater dispersal event. Here, we present a novel interpretation of the affinities and origin of the Diahot Tooth, based on qualitative study of its preserved morphology and quantitative phylogenetic analyses that include both rhinocerotids and diprotodontoids. We show that the Diahot Tooth most closely resembles the first deciduous premolar of Western Eurasian Miocene teleoceratine rhinocerotid Brachypotherium brachypus, with the few discrepancies relating to traits that are known to be variable in B. brachypus. Our phylogenetic analyses also support this relationship. The preservation of the Diahot Tooth closely resembles that of B. brachypus teeth from the “Faluns Sea” of the Loire basin, and we propose that the New Caledonian specimen originated there and was taken to New Caledonia by a European colonist during the mid-19th century, where it was lost, rediscovered, and incorrectly assumed to be autochthonous.

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Data availability

The taxon-character matrices and the buffers of the resulting distance and parsimony analyses are available via the Online resources. Any further information regarding data will be available upon request to the corresponding authors.

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Acknowledgements

We are particularly grateful to Christine Argot (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, in Paris), for allowing us to get access to the Diahot Tooth. We are also indebted to colleagues from Nouméa, including Muriel Glaunec-Mainguet (City Museums curator), Christophe Dervieux (New Caledonia Archive), Christophe Sand (New Caledonia and Pacific Archeology institute), and Louis Lagarde (University of New Caledonia) for fruitful discussion and their help concerning the history of the archipelago. Gilbert Price (University of Queensland) kindly provided comparative photographs of diprotodontoid specimens. We extend our warm thanks to Esperanza Cerdeño and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive and supportive remarks, as well as Ornella C. Bertrand and Darin A. Croft for having carefully handled this manuscript. POA dedicates this work to the memory of Léonard Ginsburg and Jean-Loup Welcomme, for their endless discussions about the Diahot Tooth. This is ISEM publication n°2024-143.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut des Sciences de l’Évolution de Montpellier (ISEM), Univ Montpellier, CNRS, IRD, Place Eugène Bataillon, Montpellier Cedex 05, 34095, France

    Oscar Affholder & Pierre-Olivier Antoine

  2. School of Science, Engineering and Environment, University of Salford, Manchester, M5 4WT, UK

    Robin M.D. Beck

Authors
  1. Oscar Affholder
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  2. Pierre-Olivier Antoine
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  3. Robin M.D. Beck
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Contributions

All authors designed the research. O.A. and P.-O.A. wrote the first draft of the main manuscript text. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Oscar Affholder or Pierre-Olivier Antoine.

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Appendix 1

Appendix 1

  1. 1.

    Occlusal outline, shape: (0) triangular; (1) tear-shaped; (2) comma-like; (3) pentagonal.

  2. 2.

    Occlusal outline, proportion: (0) W/L < 1; (1) W/L > 1.

  3. 3.

    Enamel aspect: (0) striated; (1) corrugated; (2) striated and corrugated.

  4. 4.

    Crown height: (0) low (brachydont; H/L < 1); (1) high (hypsodont; H/L > 1).

  5. 5.

    Cement: (0) absent; (1) present.

  6. 6.

    Protoloph: (0) present; (1) more often or equally present; (2) more often absent; (3) absent.

  7. 7.

    Protoloph: as high as the metaloph/hypocone; (1) lower than the metaloph/hypocone.

  8. 8.

    Protoloph: (0) continuous; (1) split in two parts.

  9. 9.

    Metaloph, orientation: (0) mesolingually directed; (1) transverse; (2) distolingually directed.

  10. 10.

    Ectoloph: (0) straight; (1) more or equally often straight; (2) more often convex; (3) convex.

  11. 11.

    Parastyle: (0) present; (1) absent.

  12. 12.

    Parastyle, orientation: (0) sagittal; (1) curved lingually.

  13. 13.

    Parastyle constriction: (0) present; (1) absent.

  14. 14.

    Paracone fold: (0) absent; (1) more or equally often absent; (2) more often present; (3) present.

  15. 15.

    Metacone fold: (0) absent/weak; (1) more or equally often absent; (2) more often strongly marked; (3) strongly marked.

  16. 16.

    Prefossette: (0) present; (1) absent.

  17. 17.

    Lingual cingulum: (0) present; (1) more or equally often present; (2) more often absent; (3) absent.

  18. 18.

    Lingual cingulum: (0) continuous; (1) interrupted.

  19. 19.

    Hypocone: (0) present; (1) absent.

  20. 20.

    Labial cingulum: (0) present; (1) more or equally often present; (2) more often absent; (3) absent.

  21. 21.

    Labial cingulum: (0) continuous; (1) interrupted.

  22. 22.

    Protocone: (0) present; (1) more or equally often present; (2) more often absent; (3) absent.

  23. 23.

    Protocone-Hypocone: (0) equally developed; (1) protocone < hypocone.

  24. 24.

    Median valley: (0) open lingually; (1) more or equally often open lingually; (2) more often closed lingually; (3) closed lingually (lingual wall).

  25. 25.

    Crochet: (0) absent; (1) more or equally often absent; (2) more often present; (3) present.

  26. 26.

    Crista: (0) absent (1) more or equally often absent; (2) more often present; (3) present.

  27. 27.

    Secondary enamel foldings: (0) absent; (1) present.

  28. 28.

    Postfossette (on worn teeth): (0) narrow; (1) wide.

  29. 29.

    Postfossette: (0) as deep as the median valley; (1) shallower than the median valley.

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Affholder, O., Antoine, PO. & Beck, R.M. The “Diahot Tooth” is a Miocene rhinocerotid fossil brought by humans to New Caledonia. J Mammal Evol 31, 27 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-024-09723-6

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