Palaeogenomic data from a Late Pleistocene coprolite clarifies the phylogenetic position of Sicilian cave hyena. Surprisingly, we found that the Sicilian genome forms a basal lineage of cave hyena. Moreover, results show that the Sicilian cave hyena is less admixed with African spotted hyena than the German and Russian specimens are, thus rejecting any large scale gene flow from Africa to Sicily. Our findings show that the genetic structure of European cave hyenas was more complex than previously documented, and offers new insights into the phylogeny of the genus Crocuta.

Giulio Catalano, Dawid Adam Iurino, Alessandra Modi, Johanna L.A. Paijmans, Raffaele Sardella, Luca Sineo, David Caramelli, Axel Barlow. Palaeogenomic data from a Late Pleistocene coprolite clarifies the phylogenetic position of Sicilian cave hyena. Quaternary Science Reviews 340 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108859

Ancient DNA shows that the Iberian lynx interbred with the Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) over the last few thousand years. This would have helped to increase its genetic diversity and is important, given the current scenario, in which the long-term survival of the Iberian lynx is not guaranteed.

Led by Spain’s Scientific research council, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the scientific team analysed the DNA of the three ancient Iberian lynx specimens: one from Andújar dated around 4300 years ago, another from Alcanar in Catalonia dated 2500 years ago, and another from Algarve in Portugal, dated approximately 2100 years ago. Then they compared this information with genetic data from present-day individuals. What they observed was totally unexpected: the genetic diversity of ancient lynx was lower than that of contemporary lynx.

Lucena-Perez, M., Paijmans, J.L.A., Nocete, F. et al. Recent increase in species-wide diversity after interspecies introgression in the highly endangered Iberian lynx. Nat Ecol Evol 8, 282–292 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02267-7

See also our piece in The Conversation:

http://theconversation.com/ancient-dna-helped-us-uncover-the-iberian-lynxs-potential-secret-weapon-against-extinction-237076 

We found a previously unknown species of rinkhals in a museum collection.

Tom Major, Pia Renk, Jens Reissig, Johanna L. A. Paijmans, Ellie Morris, Michael Hofreiter, Axel Barlow, Donald G. Broadley, Wolfgang Wüster (2023) Museum DNA reveals a new, potentially extinct species of rinkhals (Serpentes: Elapidae: Hemachatus) from the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe. PloS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291432 

Low differentiation in climatic niche among subspecies of leopards, available on BioRxiv while in review..

Sidney Leedham, Johanna L. A. Paijmans, Andrea Manica, Michela Leonardi (2023). Niche conservatism in a generalist felid: low differentiation of the climatic niche among subspecies of the leopard (Panthera pardus). BioRxiv. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.01.26.525491 

We used ancient DNA from an extinct Sicilian to define its dwarfing rates. Mediterranean dwarf elephants are small-bodied descendants from one of the largest land mammals ever lived! Using ancient DNA, palaeontological and geochronological evidence to define the maximum and minimum dwarfing rate of a Sicilian dwarf elephant from Puntali cave. Published in Current Biology:

Baleka, S., Herridge, V.L., Catalano, G, Lister, A.M., Dickinson, M.R., Di Patti, C., Barlow, A., Penkman, K.E.H., Hofreiter, M., and Paijmans, J.L.A. (2021). Defining the Island Dwarfing Rate of an Extinct Sicilian Elephant Using Ancient DNA. Current Biology. https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00735-1