The vertebrate fauna from the interglacial deposits at Sugworth, near Oxford

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Abstract
The fossil vertebrate material from Sugworth comprises freshwater fishes, Amphibia, a snake and fourteen mammalian taxa, including Sorex cf. savini, Beremendia cf. fissidens (the first British record), Mimomys savini, Pliomys episcopalis and Dicerorhinus etruscus. Several taxa are not recorded from later than the Cromerian interglacial and the presence of Mimomys savini indicates a pre-Zone Cr IV age, in agreement with a pollen Zone Cr IIIb age, based on palaeobotanical evidence. The terrestrial vertebrate material was for the most part probably disarticulated and broken by the activities of predators and by transport in the river. The fauna is consistent with the palaeobotanical evidence for regional temperate forest, but shows some differences in taxa from that of West Runton (Zone Cr II), and woodland rodents are relatively much more abundant in the younger deposits, probably due in part to local habitat differences. Sugworth provides the only adequate vertebrate fauna of Zone Cr IIIb age so far known from Britain.*