I'm a PhD candidate from Greece with a Bachelor's degree in geology and a Master's degree in paleontology. My study focuses on the evolution and the taxonomy of fossilized micromammals. The study of these fossils has proven to be a valuable tool for the dating of terrestrial sediments and reconstructing palaeo-environments. I currently study micromammal remains during the Pliocene and Pleistocene from newly discovered localities in Western Turkey.
keywords
Vertebrate Paleontology, Evolution, Anatolia, Micro-mammals, Pliocene, Paleo-biogeography, Paleo-environment
Researchinterest
The topic of my PhD research is: Paleontological and stratigraphical overview of micro-mammal faunas from Anatolia during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. Over the last decade, a large number of late Neogene and early Pleistocene localities were discovered by a team of Pamukkale University in Turkey. In these localities a great number of micromammals have been observed. The micromammals are characterized by their wide geographical spread, their adaptation in diverse environmental conditions and they have been established as an important tool for biogeographic and palaeoenvironmental studies. Most important, they proved to be the most precise tool for dating terrestrial sediments. This study is focused on the micromammal remains of these localities. By studying the changes in the rodent faunas, it will be possible to observe the effect of important palaeoenvironmental or tectonic events that took place around 3 million years ago on the lives of the various animals that colonized Anatolia. It is important to study this events because they may also be repeated in the future. Finally, with this research it will be possible to observer migration events that took place during the Pliocene and lead to today’s European faunas.
Keypublications
- Anne E. Blair Gould, Panagiotis Skandalos, M. Ángeles Álvarez-Sierra, Lars W. van den Hoek Ostende & Pablo Peláez Campomanes (2022): Eomyids: happy old age or premature death? Reconstructing the life history of Ligerimys (Eomyidae, Rodentia, Mammalia), Historical Biology. DOI: 10.1080/08912963.2022.2075743
- Panagiotis Skandalos, Wilma Wessels, Socrates Roussiakis & Constantin S. Doukas (2022). Morphological analysis of Cricetodon aliveriensis (Rodentia, Mammalia) from the locality of Karydia (Rhodope, Northern Greece). PalZ. DOI: 10.1007/s12542-021-00601-7
- Van den Hoek Ostende, L. W., Bilgin, M., Braumuller, Y., Hír, Y., Joniak, P., Jovells-Vaqué, S., Peláez-Campomanes, P., Prieto, J., Skandalos, P., Casanovas-Vilar, I. (2020): Generically speaking, a survey on Neogene rodent diversity at the genus level in the NOW database. – Fossil Imprint, 76(1): 118–127, Praha
- Georgalis, G. L., Villa, A., Ivanov, M., Roussiakis, S., Skandalos, P., & Delfino, M. (2019a). Early Miocene herpetofaunas from the Greek localities of Aliveri and Karydia—bridging a gap in the knowledge of amphibians and reptiles from the early Neogene of southeastern Europe. Historical Biology, 31, 1045–1064