A reconstruction of the skull of Megalotragus priscus (Broom, 1909), based on a find from Erfkroon, Modder River, South Africa, with notes on the chronology and biogeography of the Species

A reconstruction of the skull of the giant alcelaphine bovid, Megalotragus priscus, is provided based on a brain case and horn cores discovered and excavated at the late Florisian locality of Erfkroon on the Modder River, central Free State Province, South Africa. The sedimentary context of the M. priscus specimen can be correlated with fluvial deposits dated previously by luminescence to the Last Interglacial. Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) analyses of dental specimens from various localities at Erfkroon indicate a terminal Middle Pleistocene and Late Pleistocene age for these deposits. The skull reconstruction of M. priscus is aided by an upper jaw and mandible from the Late Pleistocene locality of Mahemspan. The M. priscus materials from Erfkroon, Mahemspan and other localities allow a re-evaluation of the morphological affinities of the species and it appears to be closer to wildebeest-like alcelaphines (genus Connochaetes) than to hartebeest-like alcelaphines (genera Alcelaphus and Damaliscus). Variability in the fossil horn cores suggests sexual dimorphism and some degree of territorial behaviour. It also suggests geographic variability in the populations of M. priscus in central southern Africa during the later part of the Middle Pleistocene and Late Pleistocene, before its extinction at the end of the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene.