Mammals from the Allen Formation, Late Cretaceous, Argentina

By G. Rougier, L. Chornogubsky, S. Casadío, N. P. Arango, A. Giallombardo. 2009

84 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract A mammalian fauna from the Late Cretaceous locality of “Cerro Tortuga,” Allen Formation, Rio Negro Province, Argentina, is described here based on a sample, represented by 7 isolated teeth which shows similarities with those reported from the Late Cretaceous Los Alamitos Formation. These two mammalian faunas largely agree on their overall composition at the supraspecific level but new species are recognized for some of the specimens described. Small-sized dryolestoids, mesungulatids and ferugliotheriids are present in Cerro Tortuga. A new species of Mesungulatum, [Bonaparte, J.F., Soria, M.F., 1985. Nota sobre el primer mamifero del Cretacico Argentino, Campaniano-Maastrichtiano, (Condylarthra). Ameghiniana 21, 177–183] leads to a reassessment of mesungulatid diversity in the Late Cretaceous South American mammalian faunas and some provisional considerations on the relative age of the mammal-bearing units. The South American Late Cretaceous radiation of dryolestoids has its origins in the early Late Cretaceous, at the latest, and extends into the Paleocene when their last remnants are obliterated possibly in relation to the incoming Laurasian tribosphenic mammals. The Late Cretaceous non-tribosphenic mammals have no clear link with the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous South American mammals, emphasizing the distinctiveness and episodic nature of the Mesozoic South American mammalian assemblages. The scant number of fossils and geochronologically discontinuous record may artificially accentuate the distinctiveness of the as yet poorly known pre-Late Cretaceous South American mammals, in particular if an epiric sea separated South Amerca into northen and southern realms.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Paleontology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c02c5ac0faf205ca537fe064b89e403f2c93c528

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In Global and Planetary Change

1. P. Mannion
2. Paul Upchurch
3. S. Evans
4. Roger B. J. Benson

In Paleontology

1. Paul Upchurch
2. P. Mannion
3. R. Butler
4. Roger B. J. Benson
5. S. Evans
6. A. Goswami
7. Paul M. Barrett
8. R. Irmis

Citations in the corpus

• Cretaceous tetrapod fossil record sampling and faunal turnover: Implications for biogeography and the rise of modern clades (2013, background): “A distinctive Gondwanan fauna, rooted partially in the Middle Jurassic appearance of australotribosphenidans, developed and diversified during the Cretaceous; although many of its constituents survived into the lowermost Cenozoic (e.g. Gelfo and Pascual, 2001; Rougier et al., 2009; Goswami et al., 2”