| Summary: | The Quaternary fossil record of Portugal is important for our understanding of the paleobiodiversity in Iberia. In the present master thesis a series of studies augment our knowledge about this topic. A census of Quaternary paleobiodiversity is carried out in order to test how reliable the fossil record is for detecting living species, resulting in that ~38% of living terrestrial tetrapods are recognized in the fossil record for Portugal, although the number of species recognized varies between groups. The body mass of a Portuguese proboscidean (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) is calculated via numerical methods for the first time (11metric tons) and morphometric comparisons of this species with Mammuthus primigenius are presented using an extensive Proboscidean sample. A new fossil brown bear (Ursus arctos) locality, Algar do Vale da Pena, with numerous claw mark in the walls of the cave (the first of this type of marks described in Portugal) is presented and the fossil bear remains identified and compared to a sample from NW Spain. The bears from Algar do Vale da Pena contrast with other previously known Portuguese brown bear specimens by relative small size. A new microvertebrate locality from Algarve, Santa Margarida, is presented. It is an extraordinary rich site with one fossil for every two grams of sediment selected and processed. The locality provided the first record of two arvicoline taxa in Portugal (Iberomys huescarensis and Victoriamys chalinei), which allows giving a minimal age of around 800.000 YBP for at least part of it. This makes Santa Margarida one of the oldest three localities in the Pleistocene of Portugal.
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