However, temporary landbridges appears to have connected Africa to Eurasia before the final closure of the Tethys Seaway, allowing some mammals to emigrate between the landmasses.
With the Balkans solidly connected to Asia Minor, the seaways to the Paratethys were closed, which transformed the shallow sea into an isolated basin with its own endemic fauna.
It has been found in Turkey from MN 6 and, as the primitive deinothere (elephant-like) Prodeinotherium is known from Lesbos, Greece, it seems likely there was a connection between the regions around 18.4 mya.
The MN 3 fauna of Negev, Israel,[3] provides a mixture of African and Eurasian taxa representative for this interchange: the elephant-like Prodeinotherium and Gomphotherium, the carnivorous Anasinopa, the small ungulate Dorcatherium, the early pika Kenyalagomys, and rodent Megapedetes from Africa; and the bovid Eotragus, the suid Listriodon, and Rhinocerotidae from Asia.
Emigrants from Asia, included the bovid Eotragus, the suid Bunolistriodon, the nimravid (cat) Prosansanosmilus, and rodents such as Megacricetodon, Democricetodon, Cricetodon, and Eumyarion.