New proboscidean fossils from middle siwaliks of haritalyangar area, Himachal Pradesh, India

Abstract

We report here a number of dental fossil remains of proboscideans from Haritaly-angar area of the Middle Siwaliks in Bilaspur District of Himachal Pradesh, North India collected by the first author (ARS) in different field seasons, who has also mapped the fossil localities. Most of these fossil localities fall in the Upper Alternations with very lit-tle explored previously. We have assigned the fossils into three main genera, Stegolo-phodon, ?Stegodon and Choerolophodon, besides a fossil fragment belonging to either a Gomphotheriidae or an Amebelodontidae. The choerolophodontid conforms well to Choerolophodon corrugatus, a common taxon in the Middle Siwaliks. Stegolophodon is richly represented in the proboscidean fossil record of the area distinguished into two species, one small indeterminate (Stegolophodon. sp.) and a larger one (S. cf. ste-godontoides), which is a well-known representative of the genus in the Middle Siwaliks elsewhere. The topmost layers of the Upper Alternations have yielded remains that may belong to a derived stegodontid, Stegodon. These proboscidean fossils document a late Miocene assemblage and allow a correlation between the Upper Alternations and the Dhok Pathan Formation of the Middle Siwaliks and speak on the palaeoecol-ogy.