HYAENODONTS AND CARNIVORANS FROM THE EARLY OLIGOCENE TO EARLY MIOCENE OF XIANSHUIHE FORMATION, LANZHOU BASIN,

Fieldwork in the 1990s produced a few records of carnivorous mammals (cre-odonts and carnivorans) in the early Oligocene through early Miocene of Lanzhou Basin, Gansu Province, China. Although only five taxa are known so far, most repre-sented by fragmentary material, the new carnivore assemblage is unique and shows little resemblance to faunas elsewhere in eastern Asia. The early Oligocene record is represented by a single premolar of a Hyaenodon, referable to H. pervagus. In the early Miocene, a new species of Hyaenodon, H. weilini sp. nov., represented by sev-eral cheek teeth, is the last record of this genus in east Asia. A horizontal ramus of an amphicyonid, here identified as Ictiocyon cf. I. socialis, is the first record of this taxon in Asia, and a very small musteloid lower carnassial, although difficult to identify to genus, is clearly a new record because nothing of this small size has been known in Asia. The overall faunal composition seems to suggest affinity with northern Eurasia rather tha