A revision of medium and small sized deer from the Middle and Late Pleistocene of Calabria and Sicily

The remains of Megaceroides calabriae from Middle Pleistocene deposits at locality Bovetto (Southern Calabria) and of Megaceroides carburangelensis from the late Middle and Late Pleistocene locality Cimillà (South-eastern Sicily) are revised. These deer were considered as endemic species of strongly reduced size, related to genus Megaceroides (=Praemegaceros), which evolved in insular environment similarly to the endemic megaceroids from Sardinia, Corsica and Crete, M, cazioti and M. cretensis. The comparison of M. calabriae and M. carburangelensis with representatives of genera Megaceroides and Dama, carried out in the present study, shows that the Calabrian and Sicilian deer belong to Dama. In particular the Calabrian form is comparable with D. dama riberina, a fallow deer documented in the Italian peninsula during the late Middle Pleistocene (isotopic stage 7 of the δ18O stratigraphy). The results of the present study other than the systematics of Italian cervids involve also the Pleistocene paleobiogeographic reconstructions of Southern Calabria and Sicily. Therefore a new hypothesis which takes into account the new systematic position of Calabrian and Sicilian deer is proposed.