Inferences on the diet of fossil European rhinoceroses Palaeoecological inferences from the dental material of Pliocene to Early Pleistocene European rhinoceroses

During the Pliocene and the Pleistocene, several species of rhinoceros belonging to the genus Stephanorhinus inhabited Europe. We focus on the Pliocene species S. megarhinus and S. elatus and the Early Pleistocene S. etruscus that deserve particular attention in their ecology since they are closely related from a phylogenetic point of view and show evident differences in their size. We studied the fossil remains of three populations, one for each species, from the French localities of Montpellier, Vialette and Senéze. The work aims to evaluate the possible different ecology of the populations by a multi-approach analyses to the dental material: morphological and biometrical comparison, mesowear analysis and microwear texture analysis.