Representativity of quaternary mammals from the southern Brazilian continental shelf

Abstract

Fossils of terrestrial mammals from the southern Brazilian continental shelf have been known since the late 19th century. The fossils are relatively common and represent several taxonomic groups of the Pleistocene megafauna. Although the systematics of the fossil assemblage is well known, the relative proportions among taxonomic groups and their skeletal elements have not been evaluated yet. Here are presented the results of a survey of the diversity of skeletal elements and taxa among 2,391 specimens belonging to the paleontological collection of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande (FURG). The survey revealed that the most common taxa are the artiodactyls, ground sloths, glyptodontids and toxodontids, while carnivores, rodents and litopterns are very scarce. The most abundant skeletal elements are osteoderms of cingulates (mostly glyptodontids) and teeth of other groups. Although paleoecological and paleoenvironmental inferences are very hard to obtain because the fossils do not have a stratigraphic setting, encompass a wide time span, of some 700 ky BP, and represent several environments and climates, some patterns of taxonomic abundance are apparently related to ecological factors, while others seem to result from taphonomic processess. © 2012 by the Sociedade Brasileira de Paleontologia.