Materials and Methods

Over the past several decades, work carried out at Langebaanweg by staff and volunteers at the Iziko South African Museum in Cape Town has resulted in the collection of thousands of vertebrate fossils. The majority of these specimens had been deposited under high-energy conditions and excavated as overburden by commercial mining operations. Although some excavations were undertaken, material was mainly collected opportunistically by, and under the direction of, Q. Brett Hendey, who was the original and long-time principle investigator of the site (e.g., Hendey 1967, 1974, 1981). Additionally, fossiliferous sediment was deposited in "dumps" to allow later hand recovery of specimens by paleontological teams. Micromammal remains were also recovered through screenwashing. Hence, individual localities at Langebaanweg generally are not in situ and likely represent at least some degree of time-averaging.

Chrysochlorids possess a highly distinctive skeleton, elements of which are easily distinguishable from other mammalian species present at Langebaanweg. Hundreds of catalogued chrysochlorid skeletal fragments are represented. We analyzed the majority of relatively complete dentaries, maxillae, premaxillae, mallei, humeri, radii, ulnae, femora, tibiae-fibulae, sacra, innominates, and sterna. We base our specific diagnoses on those elements that display clear variation in size and/or qualitative morphology, namely, dentaries, humeri, and femora. Other elements from Langebaanweg, such as maxillary and maxilla-premaxillary fragments and some postcrania, are homogeneous in anatomy and size, and based on comparisons with extant species are proportional to the individuals represented by the most common dentary and humeral morphotype. We therefore include them in the hypodigm for the more common of the two new species described here.

Abbreviations: AMNH, American Museum of Natural History, New York; KM, Amathole Museum, King Williams Town; KNM, National Museums of Kenya, Nairobi; NRM, Naturhistoriska Riksmuseet, Stockholm; SAM, All collections in the Iziko South African Museum (formerly the South African Museum) have this prefix, followed by a hyphen and the relevant sub-collection acronym. SAM-PQL, fossils described herein are housed in the Cenozoic Collections of Iziko South African Museum. At the time of collection the material was accessioned in the Department of Quaternary Palaeontology (hence, "PQ"), and each site was assigned an acronym, in this case "L" for Langebaanweg. SAM-ZM, Iziko South African Museum modern mammals. TM, Transvaal Museum, Pretoria.