Named By: | Alan W. Gentry in 2010 |
Time Period: | Middle Pliocene |
Location: | Ethiopia - Hadar Formation |
Size: | Uncertain |
Diet: | Herbivore |
Fossil(s): | Skull |
Classification: | | Chordata | Mammalia | Artiodactyla | Bovidae | Alcelaphinae | |
Damalborea is an extinct genus of alcelaphine bovid. It was first named by Alan W. Gentry in 2010, and the type species is Damalborea elisabethae. It is known from the holotype AL 208-7, a skull with horn cores collected from the Middle Pliocene (ca. 3.3 mya) Hadar Formation Member SH-3 of Ethiopia. In addition, a fossils of this or a closely related species were collected from Aramis, Wee-ee and Maka localities in the Middle Awash deposits, lower and upper units of the Laetolil Beds, as well as Tulu Bor Member and an unknown horizon of the Koobi Fora Formation. Damalborea was a moderately large alcelaphine (larger than Damalacra and Parmularius) with high and narrow skull proportions.
According to Gentry (2010), the generic name "indicates an alcelaphine of the north" (differentiating it from Damalacra, the fossils of which were discovered near the Cape of Good Hope), while the specific name honors Elisabeth Vrba.