Spotted Hyaena Spotted on Island: the Upper Pleistocene Hyaenas from San Teodoro Cave (Sicily, Italy) Provide New Insights on the Palaeobiology, Palaeoecology, and Sociality of Crocuta

Fossil remains of spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta Erxleben, 1777) are commonly found across Eurasian and African Late Pleistocene sites, especially in cave deposits. While this species had a wide geographic distribution, palaeontological evidence of its presence in Quaternary insular settings in southern Europe is restricted to Sicily, where the most abundant sample of Crocuta has been recovered from the Late Pleistocene site of San Teodoro Cave. Previous research on the site recognised the prominent role of hyaenas as a taphonomic agent, with thousands of coprolites and traces on large mammal remains, but no description of the material from a systematic palaeontology perspective has been published to date. Here, we provide the first comprehensive study of Crocuta skeletal remains from the San Teodoro Cave, alongside a comparative analysis of the endocranial anatomy. Biometric and morphological data were compared with those of extant and Late Pleistocene specimens. Our results reveal that, with respect to roughly coeval samples from mainland Europe, San Teodoro hyaenas were characterised by a slightly reduced body size, indicative of a possible effect of insularism. This study offers new insights into the diversity and distribution of the Late Pleistocene spotted hyaenas of Europe and confirm the crucial role of San Teodoro Cave in understanding Quaternary insular ecosystems.