The first representative vertebrate fauna from the late Miocene of Southern European Russia

508 The land vertebrate fauna from the Miocene of southern European Russia is poorly investigated. This is caused by a wide spread in this region of marine deposits of the Paratethys and restricted occurrences of continental sediments. Only isolated specimens mostly belonging to large mammals have been recorded in this area [1‐3]. Therefore, a particularly rich and diverse Late Miocene vertebrate fauna recently collected in the Morskaya 2 locality of the Sea of Azov region is of special interest.