Abstract
One of the best-known faunal assemblages that characterizes the past ecosystems from South America comes from the Santa Cruz Formation in Argentina. This assemblage is formed by an endemic fauna, which included ground sloths, glyptodonts, native ungulates, terror birds (phorusrhacids), among others. The Santacrucian South American Land Mammal Age is dated 18.0–15.6 Ma, late early Miocene. Current curatorial efforts revealed a large collection of over 1100 fossil remains from the Santa Cruz Formation, donated in 2007 to the Paleontological Museum, University of Zurich, Switzerland. The fossils were brought to Switzerland in the late 1880s by Theodor Allemann, an engineer and amateur collector. The collection includes skulls, isolated teeth, mandibles, and isolated postcranial elements. Postcranials are mainly represented by astragali, calcanei, and osteoderms. The study of the remains allowed us to recognize 20 families of mammals, one of birds, and one of amphibians: Abderitidae, Palaeothentidae (Paucituberculata); Hathliacynidae (Sparassodonta); Dasypodidae, Peltephilidae, and Glyptodontidae (Cingulata); Megatheriidae and Megalonychidae (Tardigrada); Astrapotheriidae (Astrapotheria), Protherotheriidae and Macraucheniidae (Litopterna); Toxodontidae, Homalodotheriidae, Hegetotheriidae and Interatheriidae (Notoungulata); Dasyproctidae, Dinomyidae, Neoepiblemidae, Chinchillidae, Erethizontidae, Echimyidae and Eocardidae (Rodentia); Phorusrhacidae (Cariamiformes); and Calyptocephalellidae (Anura). Among them, we identified 28 genera and 9 species. Reference to the previous work on the Santa Cruz fauna and the good preservation of the material allow us to achieve taxonomic resolution in the identifications. We discuss the potential usefulness of this collection for studying the paleobiology of specimens/species of this fauna.
Highlights
One of the best-known faunal assemblages that characterizes the past ecosystems from South America comes from the Santa Cruz Formation in Argentina
The South American continent was separated from other landmasses from the early Eocene until the late Neogene when the formation of the Isthmus of Panama established a land connection between North and South America (Simpson 1980; Pascual and Ortiz-Jaureguizar 2007; Wilf et al 2013; Cione et al 2015; Jaramillo 2018)
Some of the richest fossiliferous localities in South America are from the early Miocene (18.0–15.6 Ma, Perkins et al 2012; Cuitino et al 2016) Santa Cruz Formation in Patagonia
Summary
The South American continent was separated from other landmasses from the early Eocene (ca. 50 Ma) until the late Neogene when the formation of the Isthmus of Panama established a land connection between North and South America (Simpson 1980; Pascual and Ortiz-Jaureguizar 2007; Wilf et al 2013; Cione et al 2015; Jaramillo 2018). 50 Ma) until the late Neogene when the formation of the Isthmus of Panama established a land connection between North and South America (Simpson 1980; Pascual and Ortiz-Jaureguizar 2007; Wilf et al 2013; Cione et al 2015; Jaramillo 2018). During this period, South America was home to an endemic fauna, which exhibited high ecological and morphological disparity. Those of the Ameghino brothers (1887, 1889, 1890), the Princeton University Expeditions to Patagonia (1896–1899) (Scott 1905, 1909, 1910), Andre Tournouer’s expeditions (1899–1903) for the Museum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris (Tournouer 1922; Buffetaut 2013), and Vizcaıno et al (2012) in the present days are examples, just to name a few
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
