Samotherium Major, 1888 (Giraffidae) skulls from the late Miocene Maragheh fauna (Iran) and the validity of Alcicephalus Rodler & Weithofer, 1890

This dataset contains the digitized treatments in Plazi based on the original journal article Parizad, Elnaz, Ataabadi, Majid Mirzaie, Mashkour, Marjan, Kostopoulos, Dimitris S. (2020): Samotherium Major, 1888 (Giraffidae) skulls from the late Miocene Maragheh fauna (Iran) and the validity of Alcicephalus Rodler & Weithofer, 1890. Comptes Rendus Palevol 19 (9): 153-172, DOI: 10.5852/cr-palevol2020v19a9, URL: doi.org/10.5852/cr-palevol2020v19a9 ABSTRACT Samotherium Major, 1888 (Giraffidae) is recorded from several late Miocene localities, primarily in the Balkans, the northern Black Sea region, Anatolia, central Asia and China.

The first complete cranial material, with several mandibular rami, and postcranials of Samotherium are described here from the Middle Maragheh sequence in northwest Iran. The Maragheh taxon appears metrically and morphologically similar to the smaller Samotherium taxon from the Samos Island (Greece) referred to as S. boissieri Major, 1888, type species of the genus. These new data trigger further discussion about the Iranian Samotherium record, including Alcicephalus Rodler & Weithofer, 1890, which was recently resurrected as a valid genus in the Maragheh fauna.