The northernmost record of Catagonus stenocephalus (Lund in Reinhardt, 1880) (Mammalia,Cetartiodactyla) and its palaeoenvironmental and palaeobiogeographical significance |
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| Institution: | 1. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), Barcelona, Spain;2. Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES), C. Marcel.lí Domingo s/n, Campus Sescelades URV (Edifici W3), Tarragona 43007, Spain;3. Area de Prehistoria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Avinguda de Catalunya 35, Tarragona 43002, Spain;4. Centro de Arqueologia (UNIARQ), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Letras, Alameda da Universidade, 1600-214 Lisboa, Portugal;1. College of Life Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, PR China;2. College of Bee Science, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, PR China;3. Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong;4. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Qingdao University, Qingdao 266071, PR China;5. Key Laboratory of Bioorganic Phosphorous Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Ministry of Education, Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PR China |
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| Abstract: | During fieldwork carried out in January 2009 at Aurora do Tocantins (Tocantins State, northern Brazil), we recovered a fragmentary right maxilla (UNIRIO-PM 1006) of Catagonus stenocephalus from a sedimentary deposit of presumed late Pleistocene age in a karstic cave. This paper aims to: (1) provide the first record of C. stenocephalus in the northern region of Brazil (and consequently, also the northernmost one); (2) update the geographic distribution of C. stenocephalus; (3) present a date for the specimen; and (4) discuss the palaeoenvironmental and palaeobiogeographical implications of the finding. The species C. stenocephalus (Lund) is known from the Bonaerian (middle Pleistocene) and Lujanian (late Pleistocene to earliest Holocene) ages in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil and Bolivia. The new record presented here extends the geographical distribution of C. stenocephalus more than 1000 km north from the former northernmost record (caves of Lagoa Santa region). Peccaries of the genus Catagonus have several morphological features associated with cursorial habits in relatively open and dry environments. The new distributional range of C. stenocephalus is coincident with the Chacoan subregion, characterized by dry climates and open areas. As the studied material comes from the top of the carbonate layer, this may suggest that the deposition of the C. stenocephalus remains described here is synchronous with the onset of a wetter climate phase. This argument is also in accordance with the datation results, around 20 ky BP, just after the last glacial maximum. This increasingly wet climate, which may also be related to the climatic changes that occurred during the late Pleistocene/early Holocene, could be a factor in the extinction of C. stenocephalus in South America. |
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