Author: Roman Croitor
Text ID: 89853
Text Type: 7
Page: 0
Created: 2018-09-18 18:14:48 - User Croitor Roman
Last change: 2018-09-18 18:19:00 - User Croitor Roman
Language: EN
Text function: [[t:510900,textblock=89853,elang=EN;title]]
Body size varies from medium to very large; antlers of moderate size, with a basal forward tine and distal crown tines inserted on the posterior side of the beam; the crown tines are frequently dichotomously branched; the basal tine is often supplemented with an accessory prong or is branched; no middle tine. The braincase is moderately flexed; parietal bones are not convex. Basioccipitale is bell-shaped, broadened in the pharyngeal tubercles. Small upper canines are present in both sexes.
Hodgson (1838) indicated in the diagnosis of Cervus (Rucervus) that upper canines are only present in males. Pocock (1943) confirmed Hodgson’s statement, but he recognized that he was able to check this character only in a single female skull of Rucervus duvaucelii that was studied by Hodgson. According to the craniological material stored in the MNHN, the upper canines are present in both sexes of R. duvaucelii.
The definition of the genus Arvernoceros Heintz, 1970 based on Cervus ardei Croizet et Jobert, 1828 from the Late Pliocene (Early Villafranchian) of Perrier-Etouaires (France) generally corresponds to the diagnosis of Rucervus and therefore is a junior synonym of the latter, or, at the most, could be regarded as a subgenus of Rucervus.
