| Introduction Small mammals, and especially insectivores, long have been the stepchildren in Austrian palaeontology, although Hofmann described an insectivore species, Plesiosorex styriacus, from two Styrian sites as early as 1892. In 1893 the same author described and figured an erinaceid tooth, now known as Lantanotherium sp., from Göriach in Styria. Thenius (1949) presented a revision of the insectivores of the Styrian Tertiary, that is the Miocene. No insectivores were known from other parts of Austria at that time, partly because research was centred in Vienna and Graz; many more fossil sites are known from the eastern parts of Austria, which, however, mainly yielded large mammals. Systematic searches for small mammals by means of screen washing... |
