The Fossil Insectivora of Lemoyne Quarry (Ash Hollow Formation, Hemphillian), Keith County, Nebraska

The insectivore fauna of Lemoyne Quarry is the most diverse and most cosmopolitan of any recorded from Hemphillian deposits of the Great Plains; four genera and six species of shrews and five genera and five species of moles are known. The soricinines Sorex edwardsi n. sp., Sorex yatkolai n. sp., and Sorex sp. most closely resemble Sorex hagermanensis and S. rexroadensis from the Hagerman and Rexroad local faunas of Idaho and Kansas, respectively. Lemoyne Alluvisorex (Soricini) is indistinguishable from A. arcadentes from Barstovian rocks of Oregon, and Lemoyne cf. Limnoecus (Limnoecinae) has larger teeth than Barstovian L. tricuspis (including L. niobrarensis). Lemoyne Anouroneomys magnus n. gen. and n. sp. (Neomyini) is larger than A. minimus sp. nov. from Clarendonian rocks of Oregon; Anouroneomys is closely related to the Anourosorex-Amblycoptus of neomyine shrews and may be a Late Miocene immigrant from Eurasia. Achlyoscapter sp., and Talpinae undetermined genus and species 2 and 3 have close morphologic counterparts from Barstovian rocks of Oregon. Talpine, undetermined genus and species 1 is closest to Scalopus (Hesperoscalops) from the Rexroad Formation but is similar in some respects to Scapanulus and Scalopoides. Lemoynea biradicularis n. gen. and n. sp. (Desmaninae) is the first record of the water moles from the Western Hemisphere. Lemoynea is closest morphologically to Vindobonian Mygalea and Pontian Mygalinia, from France and Hungary, respectively. The desmanines are aquatic moles and the closest-living relatives of Anouroneomys are aquatic (Neomys) or forest-dwelling (Anourosorex) , and support earlier suggestions that Late Miocene Holarctic mammal exchange involved principally forest and aquatic forms