Dr. Nagy I. Zoltán szerk.: Fragmenta Mineralogica Et Palaentologica 6. 1975. (Budapest, 1975)
position ans size of P3. It is much bigger than in any recent animal and situated in the toothrow - a relatively rare case among recent (Plate V. figs. 1-13 ) specimens - in specimen No. V.75. 96 (Plate III. fig. 6). In other fossils, this tooth agrees with the recent ones in size. It is missing, from most of the fossils, but the alveoli are greater than in the majority of recent specimens. The orocaudal elongation of fossil P4, though variable, seems rather important. The crown of the fossil tooth is less oblique anteroexternally, its hind margin is straight and set perpendicularly to the main axis of the mandible. There is a strong impression by in Rh. hi p posideros , but mostly absent in Rh. variabilis n. sp. , as also the medio-posterior lobule of the recent tooth. There appears a highly interesting and strong wear in the postero-external corner of crowns of C and P4 in most of the fossil specimens, where the cusps of the corresponding upper teeth touch the crowns of the lower ones. The rather fragmentary state of our fossil material does not permit a thorough examination into the reason of this phenomenon. The same kind of wear seems small and less frequent in the recent species, as I found it in less than 10-20 per cent of the specimens, and mainly in P4. It is worthy of note that I found a more pronounced trend for this kind of wear in the Dalmatian Rh . h . mi nimus specimens. The primary reason of this evidently disadvantageous wear is most probably the oral protrusion of the upper teeth mentioned above. Another probable explanation is the more crowded state of the frontal teeth because of the orocaudal compression of the tooth-row as if the crowns of C and P4 were turned lingually and posteriorad in recent Rh. hi p posideros , and thus a smaller chance for the disadvantageous meeting observed in Rh. variablis n.sp. As is known, the distance between paraconid and metaconid, that is, the length of trigonid, or the openness of V, is the greatest in Mi and the smallest in M3 (observed by MEIN 1964 in Rh. grivensis and Rh. euryale ). I found a conspicuous difference in the lengths of trigonids between the recent and fossil specimens. It is generally greater in the fossil species than in Rh. hipposideros, however, M3 is the most different, its trigonid being especially open in Rh. variabilis n.sp. Without a change in the molar lengths, the ratios of trigonid lengths and talonid lengths are different and also this is probably a manifestation of the shortening trend of the tooth-row from fossil to recent species. The remains of a population from Holocene sediments (Kiskőhát Cave, KORDOS 1973), showed a greater size but appeared otherwise identical with Rh. hi p posideros hi p posideros in dental characters. Comparison of Rh. variabilis n. sp ., Rh. hi p posideros (subsp.? Tajikistan) and Rh . midas (Kashmir). The width of the basal cross section of upper C is much less than in the Tajikistan specimen, so the latter shows an extreme value in this respect; the crown of this tooth is without an anterior cingulum cusp, as in both fossil and European animals. Both the fossil and the European species differ fron the Central Asiatic specimen in having longer P 2 with a one-third bigger crown and also a bigger P 2 . P4 has a smaller base than in the European forms. At the same time, the recent European Rh. hip posideros and the Central Asiatic specimen agree in the oblique antero-external margin and in the form of the posterior margin of P 4 , the latter showing an impression for M^ This molar is wider than in fossil species, but with the same width of trigonid V. All in all, the Tajikistan specimen has in some respects (mosaically) more evolved characters than the European recent form. Incidentally the Kashmir species, Rh. midas, is extremely evolved in many respects - and in some others is more ancestral as compared even to the European recent form. ( Rh. midas with a very small P 2 , small and elongated P 2 , small P3, (Plate V. figs. 8-9), extremely wide upper C and elongated P4). In my opinion, these Asiatic forms show a very distant relation to the new species.
