Hemibos

This animal was a large bovid similar to the modern Asian buffalo (Bubalus), of which it is probably ancestral. It was characterized by elongated and non-prominent frontal bones; the bone cores of the horns did not have a neck at the base, and the angle between the horns was variable but usually between 85 ° and 110 °. Also, the orientation of the horns was variable according to the species: the species H. triquetricornis, H. acuticornis and H. galerianus possessed horns directed backwards, outwards and slightly upwards, while H. antelopinus and H. palaestinus possessed different morphologies (Martinez-Navarro and Palombo, 2004). The teeth were hypsodont, with increasing development of dental cement; the upper molars were square (Pilgrim, 1939).

The genus Hemibos was first described in 1865 by Rütimeyer, based on fossils found in India in plio-Pleistocene soils. The genus includes five species; three of these (H. acuticornis, H. triquetricornis and H. antelopinus) come from the Pinjor formation of the Siwaliks (Plio-Pleistocene, Indian subcontinent), one (H. gracilis) is known from Gansu (China) in the lower Pleistocene, and another (H. galerianus) is the largest and most recent and comes from Ponte Galeria and Ponte Milvio (Rome, Italy) and dates from the lower Pleistocene/middle Pleistocene boundary. In lower Pleistocene Spain, a form similar to H. gracilis was found. Another species attributed to Hemibos is H. palaestinicus, from Israel, but the dating is not certain and a morphological analysis indicates it may belong to the genus Bison. The species Probubalus occipitalis is considered identical to H. triquetricornis.

Content in this edit is translated from the existing Italian Wikipedia article at it:Hemibos; see its history for attribution.

• Pilgrim, G.E. (1939). The fossil Bovidae of India. Pal. Ind., N.S., 26 (1): 1–356.
• Pilgrim, G.E. (1941). The fossil skull of Hemibos from Palestine. Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 11 (7): 347–360.
• Nanda, A.C. (1979). Skull characters of Hemibos acuticornis (Falconer) (Mammalia, Bovidae) from the Pinjor Formation of Ambala, Haryana. Indian J. Earth Sci., 6: 175–185.
• Petronio C., Sardella R., 1998: Bos galerianus n. sp. (Bovidae, Mammalia) from Ponte Galeria Formation (Rome, Italy). Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie. Monatshefte, 5 (5): 289–300.
• Martínez-Navarro, B., Palombo, M.R., 2004. Occurrence of the Indian Hemibos genus (Bovini, Bovidae, Mammalia) at the Early-Middle Pleistocene transition in Italy. Quaternary Research 61: 314–317.
• Here, Z., Deng, T., Wang, B., 2004. Early Pleistocene mammalian fauna from Longdan, Dongxiang, Gansu, China. Paleontology Sinica 191 (C27), 1e198, þ34 pl.
• Martinez-Navarro, B. and M.R. Palombo (2007). The Horn-Core of Hemibos galerianus from Ponte Milvio, Rome (Italy). Italian Journal of Paleontology and Stratigraphy, Vol.113, Number 3.
• Khan, M.A., M. Iqbal and M. Akhtar (2009). Hemibos (Bovini, Bovidae, Mammalia) from the Pinjor Formation of Pakistan. The Journal of Animal & Plant Sciences, 19 (2).
• B Martínez-Navarro, S Ros-Montoya, MP Espigares, P Palmqvist. 2011. Presence of the Asian origin Bovine, Hemibos sp. aff. Hemibos gracilis and Bison sp., At the early Pleistocene site of Venta Micena (Orce, Spain). Quaternary International 243 (1), 54-60