LOWER MIOCENE CARNIVORA (MAMMALIA) FAUNA FROM WESTERN-EUROPE - THE BEGINNING OF MODERN FELIFORMIA FAMILIES

The Agenian mammalian fauna (MN 1 and MN 2) has long been considered a s a reduced Oligocene fauna because several mammalian groups as the th eridomorph rodents, the creodonts of the genus Hyaenodon or the anthra cotherids Anthracotherium and Microbunodon disappear at the level MN 1 . The typical Miocene mammalian fauna is arriving later by migration i n the early Orleanian (MN 3). But a study of small carnivorans unearth ed from the locality of Laugnac (Lot-et-Garonne, France) allows to kno w the presence in this site of both genera Semigenetta and Plioviverro ps. S. laugnacensis belongs to a lineage whose size increases regularl y during the Miocene with S. elegans, S. sansaniensis and S. steinheim ensis. There is a discontinuity in the early Upper Miocene with the sp ecies S. grandis (punctuation or migration ?). An other lineage compos ed with smaller species evolves also during the Miocene (S. cadeoti an d S. ripolli). Plioviverrops collectus is the smallest species of the genus. It belongs to a lineage which evolves during the Miocene and en ds with P. orbignyi (MN 12). These genera together with Herpestides, B roiliana and Stromeriella are the forerunners of the Miocene migrants into the Agenian age of mammals. The study of these genera shows also that the splitting between the extant carnivoran Feliformia families ( Felidae, Viverridae, Hyaenidae and Herpestidae) must be dated from at least the Oligocene.