[The fossil record of the Eurasian Neogene insectivores (Erinaceomorpha, Soricomorpha, Mammalia) : Part I / L.W. van den Hoek Ostende, C.S. Doukas and J.W.F. Reumer (editors)]: Switzerland

Introduction The first fossil insectivore remain from Switzerland mentioned in the scientific literature, was probably a talpid humerus from the locality of Vermes 2. The specimen was found around 1850 by the Swiss geologist J.B. Greppin, who sent it to H. von Meyer in Frankfurt. This great palaeontologist made a drawing of the humerus and mentioned it in a communication to Professor Bronn (1853). H. von Meyer's drawing was published in 1887 (plate 4, fig. 14) by M. Schlosser, who provided it with the name "Talpa telluris Pomel". H. von Meyer also received two mandible fragments of an erinaceid from J.B. Greppin, also found in Vermes 2. He mistakenly identified them as "Didelphys (Peratherium) Blainvillei Chr.". Under this name these specimens were mentioned in two publications of J.B. Greppin (1867,1870). M. Schlosser identified this erinaceid as Parasorex socialis and figured the two mandible fragments in 1887 (plate 2, figs 47 and 70). In his survey of the mammals of the Swiss Molasse H.G. Stehlin (1914) gave faunal lists of all localities known at that time. In this compilation numerous findings of insectivores were mentioned for the first time. Joh. Hürzeler (1939) gave more detailed information and descriptions of insectivore remains in a paper about some mammal faunas of the Upper Freshwater Molasse of north-western Switzerland. In this publication insectivores from Anwil, Zeglingen, and Vermes 2 were described. A milestone in insectivore research is certainly Joh. Hürzeler's revision of the family of the Dimylidae (1944), probably the first monograph of a fossil insectivore family in whole Europe. In this very clear and extraordinarily well-illustrated paper Hürzeler de-