[The fossil record of the Eurasian Neogene insectivores (Erinaceomorpha, Soricomorpha, Mammalia) : Part I / L.W. van den Hoek Ostende, C.S. Doukas and J.W.F. Reumer (editors)]: Spain

Introduction Spain, with its many Cenozoic continental basins, has one of the finest fossil records of mammals in the world. The presence of nearly continuous sections with mammal localities make some of these basins ideal for defining mammalian continental stages, such as the Ramblian, Aragonian, Vallesian and Turolian. The first mention of fossils mammals in Spain, and one of the first scientific essays on fossil bones in the world, dates back to the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Benito Jerónimo Feijoo (1736) described the presence of bones near Concud in "El Barranco de las Calaveras" (the valley of the skulls). Feijoo ascribed the numerous bones to a battle in antiquity. More localities were discovered and classical localities like Los Mansuetos were already known early in the history of palaeontology. However, the systematic investigation of the fossil mammals from Spain started in the 1940s. The main driving force was Miquel Crusafont Pairó from Sabadell. Trained as a pharmacist, Crusafont was one of the leading palaeontologists of his days, becoming professor of Paleontology at the University of Barcelona, and founder director of the Institute of Paleontology in Sabadell that took his name after his death on 1983. Together with his co-workers Josep Villalta Comella and Jaume Truyols Santonja, Crusafont published a series of papers on mammals from the Vallès-Penedès area. The fossils they collected formed the basis of the Institute Miquel Crusafont. Crusafont's main field of interest were the carnivores, bu