A Quaternary very young juvenileTapirusBrisson, 1762 (Mammalia, Perissodactyla) from a cave deposit in northern Brazil: taxonomy and taphonomy

Abstract

During fieldworks carried out from 2009 to 2013 in Aurora do Tocantins (northern Brazil), three isolated deciduous teeth of Tapirus were recovered. Those fossils come from a sedimentary deposit of presumed Late Pleistocene-early Holocene age in a karstic cave. This contribution aims to present a new locality of fossil Tapirus from northern Brazil, describe for the first time deciduous fossil teeth for South American Tapirus and evaluate the taphonomic aspects of those fossils. The specimens probably belong to the same individual due to there are no repeated teeth and they have the same wear pattern. Furthermore, the crowns of those teeth show no evidence of abrasion produced by transport. However, some abrasion is observed on the borders of the pulp chamber of teeth. These polishing are probably resulting of a very short transport (parautochthonous). These specimens are the only record of Tapiridae in Gruta do Urso cave; due to correspond to isolated and deciduous teeth, its identification to species level was not possible. There is not yet clear evidence that may indicate the kind of death of the individual studied here.

Taphonomic Aspects of Deer (Mammalia, Cetartiodactyla, Cervidae) Remains From a Quaternary Cave Deposit in Northern Brazil

“…The material was collected in four excavations (January/2011, January/2012, June/2013 and January/2014) in the Gruta do Urso. During the paleontological expeditions to the caves of northern Brazil, great diversity and abundance of fossil of mammals were gathered and they are housed at the collection of fossil mammals at the UNIRIO (Oliveira et al, 2011;Avilla et al, 2013;Rodriguez et al, 2013;Castro et al, 2013;Rodrigues et al, 2014;Villa Nova et al, 2015;Soibelzon et al, 2015;Gasparini et al, 2015). Deer remains were recovered in the four expeditions, providing us specimens enough to base this study.…”

Diversity and preservation of Pleistocene tetrapods from caves of southwestern Bahia, Brazil

“…The material was recognized by comparison with specimens from MCN and MCTer collections (not numbered, reference collections). Despite the current wide distribution of this genus, occurrences in Brazilian Pleistocene deposits are rare, with records in Minas Gerais, Bahia, Tocantins and Paraná (Cartelle, 1999;Sedor et al, 2004;Gasparini et al, 2015). Three species, T. terrestris, T. cristatellus, and T. rondoniensis are known in the Brazilian Pleistocene (e.g.…”

Mammal Taphonomy in a Cave Deposit From Quaternary of Brazil

“…However, despite this huge number of recorded cavities, fossils have been recovered from only a few of them (see Cartelle, 2012). Likewise, taphonomic analyses of fossils recovered from several Brazilian caves are scarce (e.g., Auler et al, 2006;Gasparini et al, 2015;Vasconcelos et al, 2015Vasconcelos et al, , 2018Maldonado et al, 2016;Araújo-Júnior et al, 2017a;Buchmann et al, 2017;Silva et al, 2019a), especially in comparison to tank deposits (see Araújo-Júnior et al, 2017b), another common type of deposit of the BIR.…”