Chapter 3. The fossil vertebrate record of Venezuela of the last 65 million years.

SÁNCHEZ-VILLAGRA M., ; AGUILERA O.; SÁNCHEZ, R.; CARLINI A.A.

Urumaco and Venezuela Paleontology. The Fossil Reccord of the Northern Neotropics, Sanchez-Villagra M., Aguilera O. and Carlini A.A. (eds).

Indiana University Press

Lugar: Bloomington; Año: 2010; p. 19 - 51

In his 1940 “Review of the mammal-bearing Tertiary of South America,” G. G. Simpson summarized the scanty record of Venezuela (703–704): “Few as discoveries are, they are important because they show unquestionable affinities with fossil mammals of Argentina and none with those of North America. In view of the fact that no South American mammals had reached North America in the Miocene or earliest Pliocene, even this small budget of evidence is enough to prove that South America was then a unified continent with its northern and southern parts united by land and that the northern part, as well as the southern, was then separated from North America by a marine barrier.” What little was known about northern neotropical vertebrate paleontology in 1940 was already important in addressing some large issues about biogeography and the past history of the American continent. Vertebrate paleontology in Venezuela is still in a descriptive phase, but the number of discoveries has increased exponentially in the last few years, and contributions in this volume exemplify how some of them are being used to address fundamental issues about evolution in the tropics and major events in vertebrate evolution, such as the Great American Biotic Interchange in both terrestrial and marine habitats. Here we present a chronological review of Venezuelan formations and sites with reported fossil vertebrates. Many of the sites and their fossils are also discussed specifically in different chapters of this book. Paleogene vertebrates from Venezuela are almost unknown. Several aspects on paleoenvironments and palynology of the Paleocene and Eocene of Venezuela were discussed by Rull (2000). There are several Neogene fossil sites, but most are poorly known localities with only one or a few taxa or remains reported. By far the most important section with vertebrates in the Cenozoic of Venezuela is that of the Urumaco sequence, the geology of which is treated in a separate chapter (Quiroz and Jaramillo this volume). Most vertebrate faunas from the Neogene show very low diversity, with the sole exception of the Urumaco sequence and the Cerro La Cruz site. Faunas with vertebrates are found in the Guárico sub-basin, Barinas basin, and Falcón basin. Pleistocene and Holocene deposits are becoming better known, and as discussed below the recently discovered tar pits in Zulia state and the archeological sites in Falcón state are the most significant sites.