Data from: New Olonbulukia material and its related assemblage reveal an early radiation of stem Caprini along the north of the Tibetan Plateau

Living Caprini are dominant bovids in the pan-Tibetan area that are
strongly adapted to dry steppe and high mountain meadow habitats. Some
taxa with Holarctic distributions, such as Ovis, were thought to originate
on the Tibetan Plateau and subsequently dispersed elsewhere, which was
depicted as an “out of Tibet” story. However, except for some information
on a stem caprine assemblage from the Qaidam Basin, the early evolution of
Caprini around the Tibetan Plateau is poorly known. Here, we report new
material of Olonbulukia tsaidamensis, which was a member of this stem
caprine assemblage, from the Wuzhong region, northern China, confirming
similarity of the Wuzhong Fauna and ‘Qaidam Fauna’. Based on a metric
study of horncores from the ‘Qaidam’ and Wuzhong faunas, we recognized six
taxa from this stem caprine assemblage: Olonbulukia tsaidamensis,
Olonbulukia sp., Qurliqnoria cheni, Tossunnoria pseudibex, ? Protoryx cf.
enanus, and cf. Pachytragus sp. Among these taxa, Qurliqnoria and
Tossunnoria are probably related to some extant Tibetan endemic species,
such as Tibetan antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii) and Himalayan tahr
(Hemitragus jemlahicus), and others might be ancestral to the Turolian
caprine assemblages and even possibly gave rise to the extant Caprina.
This work reveals an early radiation of stem caprines along the northern
side of the rising Tibetan Plateau and indicates a mixed pattern of
pan-Tibetan stem caprine evolution prior to their dispersal out of the
Tibetan Plateau.