Identifying the Lagomorphs of 111 Ranch

This study was conducted in order to determine whether the lagomorphs of 111 Ranch- Aztlanolagus agilis, Hypolagus arizonensis, and Sylvilagus cunicularius- could be distinguished based on femora. This is because while there is a large quantity of disarticulated lagomorph postcranial fossils from 111 Ranch, the chief diagnostic traits of A. agilis and H. arizonensis are the enamel patterns on their third premolars, leaving a large swath of specimens unidentifiable by diagnostic traits alone. Specimens from the Arizona Museum of Natural History were measured and compared to specimens known to be from these genera. Additionally, morphological traits in mandibles were used to identify mandible specimens, which in turn were used to identify fossils with the same specimen label. Statistical tests such as t-tests and principal components analyses were used to examine the distributions of sizes and locate clusters of datapoints likely corresponding to each genus. Some of these could be linked to a genus based on one particular specimen, P15156, which had been identified as Hypolagus based on its mandible morphology and size. The majority of the Museum'a specimens were thus associated with one of the three species, save for those which were too damaged and intermediate in size to confidently categorize.