“Death Behauvior” - Thanatoethology, new term and concept: A taphonomic analysis providing possible palaeoethologic inferences. Special cases from arthropods of the Santana Formation (Lower Cretaceous, Northeast Brazil)

MARTINS-NETO, R.G.; GALLEGO, O.F.

Revista Geociências

UNESP

Lugar: Rio Claro; Año: 2006 vol. 25 p. 241 - 254

1980-900X

A new concept, Tanatoethology is proposed and several peculiarities of the Santana Formation (Lower Cretaceous, northeast Brazil) taphocenosis are analysed. Tanatoethology refers to the identification, interpretation and study of a specific behaviour realised by the organism, moments before its definitive death, also before of the beginning of the fossilization process. This behaviour express agony, several times due to asphyxia (in land, air and water), and can be expressed in fossils as well as ichnofossils. The death behaviour in several cases can be associated to a mass mortality event and can to consist in an extremely utile tool for paleocolological and paleoethological analysis. The identification of this paleobehaviour can be extracted from morphological traits preserved in the fossils and some examples are furnished here.