Un equip format per personal investigador de l’Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, la Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg i el Swedish Museum of Natural History, ha estudiat la paleobiodiversitat de salamandres, tritons, granotes i gripaus durant el Miocè mitjà i el Pliocè tardà a Hambach (Alemanya). L’elevada diversitat d'amfibis en ambdós períodes suggereix un clima molt humit en aquesta zona que va persistir durant bona part del Neogen, possiblement originant un refugi per a aquests animals que va perdurar fins fa uns 3 milions d’anys. 

The scientific journal on paleontology Comptes Rendus Palevol has published a thematic issue that includes several articles on Oligocene and Miocene faunas from different regions of Eurasia. Isaac Casanovas, researcher at the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP), is one of the guest editors of this special volume that contains up-to-date information on relevant localities such as the Vallès and Penedès (Catalonia, Spain), Siwaliks (in Pakistan) or the Vienna Basin (Austria), which are very interesting from the scientific point of view to study small-scale evolution.