CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Nearctic ungulates such as artiodactyls, perissodactyls, andproboscideans arrived in South America during the Great American BioticInterchange event. Among them are camelids, cervids, tayassuids, equids,tapirids and gomphotherids. A historical collection of Nearctic ungulates fromPleistocene deposits of Pampean region in Argentina (Buenos Aires and Santa Feprovinces) is here described. The collection consists of specimens which werecollected by the Swiss-born paleontologist Santiago Roth (1850-1924) at the endof the 19th century and later brought to Switzerland (Europe), where they arehoused in the paleontological collections of the University of Zurich and theNatural History Museum of Geneva. In the collections brought by Santiago Roth to Switzerland, there arealso abundant fossil remains corresponding to ground sloths, giant armadillos,native South American ungulates, reptiles, fish, among others. The nearcticungulate taxa reported here include Notiomastodonplatensis, Lama guanicoe, Hemiauchenia paradoxa, Tayassu pecari, Morenelaphus sp., Hippidion cf.H. principale, Equus cf. E. neogeous,and other indeterminate gomphotherids, camelids, tayassuids, cervids, andequids. The exact stratigraphic position of thesefossils that were collected more than 130 years ago is in many cases uncertain.However, stratigraphic studies of the Roth localities could offer a moredetailed and relevant overview of the biostratigraphy of these mammals in thePampas region during the Pleistocene. Integration on space and time andrevisionary work of specimens could allow the investigation of taxon cycles,evolutionary and biogeographical dynamics of species that experience successiverange expansions and contractions over time. For this reason, this historicalcollection is still relevant for taxonomic studies and for offering newinsights into palaeobiogeography and palaeobiology of mammalian fauna of theregion during the Pleistocene

enviar mensaje