Paleoecological Evolution of the Fossil Suidae (Mammalia, Artiodactyla) in Neogene of Central Myanmar.

In this work, the dental morphology the Neogene fossil Suidae of central Myanmar are analyzed, and the paleoecological evolution of the Neogene fossil suids are discussed. Morphological evolution of the third molar in suids has been considered an adaptation to more abrasive diet, i.e. from a browsing to grazing diets. In Myanmar, three distinct types of diet, predominant frugivore (Middle to Late Miocene), frugivore to hyperbrowser or folivore (Late Miocene to Early Pliocene) and predominant folivore (Middle Pliocene to Early Pleistocene), have been distinguished in the dental characteristics of suid fossils. The pattern of faunal transition in Neogene suids strongly suggests a critical floral change at the Late Miocene in Myanmar. The coexisted appearance of Propotamochoerus with Sivachoerus suggesting that the C3-C4 floral transition accompanying the last faunal turnover may have occurred to bring wide spreading of C4 plants in the Early Pliocene of Myanmar, later than that in Late Miocene of Siwalik of IndoPakistan