Exceptionally well preserved late Quaternary plant and vertebrate fossils from a blue hole on Abaco, The Bahamas

Steadman, David W.; Rüschendorf, Franz; Morgan, Gary; Albury, Nancy A.; Kakuk, Brian; Broad, Kenneth; Franz, Shelley E.; Tinker, Keith; Pateman, Michael; Lott, Terry A.; Jarzen, David M.; Dilcher, David L.

doi:10.1073/pnas.0709572104

Cited by 98 publications

(129 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…The iguana Cyclura sp. is known on the Little Bahama Bank only from fossils on Abaco (10,18). Three species of Cyclura (none sympatric; all endangered) occur elsewhere in the island group (28).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…No vertebrae from Sawmill Sink have characters of the pygmy boa Tropidophis, which we thus delete from the fossil record of Abaco (contra ref. 18). Chilabothrus exsul (on the Little Bahama Bank) has a snoutto-vent length (svl) up to 810 mm whereas Chilabothrus striatus (on the Great Bahama Bank) reaches an svl of 2,330 mm (31,33,35).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A West Indian fossil vertebrate community (38 taxa of reptiles, birds, and mammals) assigned to the Pleistocene rather than the Holocene was reported from the underwater Owl Roost deposits in Sawmill Sink, Abaco, The Bahamas (18). Our subsequent field and laboratory research at this flooded sinkhole has more than doubled the Pleistocene fauna to 95 species, by far the richest and most taxonomically diverse set of vertebrate fossils from the West Indies.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…We focus on the late Pleistocene Owl Roost fossils rather than the younger fossils from the Sawmill Sink peat deposit, which have been AMS 14 C dated to the mid-Holocene to late Holocene (18,19). The Pleistocene fossils allow us to evaluate which species were able to withstand the major changes in climate, sea level, land area, and habitat during the glacial-interglacial transition.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Vertebrate community on an ice-age Caribbean island

Steadman

Albury

Kakuk

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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We report 95 vertebrate taxa (13 fishes, 11 reptiles, 63 birds, 8 mammals) from late Pleistocene bone deposits in Sawmill Sink, Abaco, The Bahamas. The >5,000 fossils were recovered by scuba divers on ledges at depths of 27-35 m below sea level. Of the 95 species, 39 (41%) no longer occur on Abaco (4 reptiles, 31 birds, 4 mammals). We estimate that 17 of the 39 losses (all of them birds) are linked to changes during the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition (PHT) (∼15-9 ka) in climate (becoming more warm and moist), habitat (expansion of broadleaf forest at the expense of pine woodland), sea level (rising from −80 m to nearly modern levels), and island area (receding from ∼17,000 km 2 to 1,214 km 2 ). The remaining 22 losses likely are related to the presence of humans on Abaco for the past 1,000 y. Thus, the late Holocene arrival of people probably depleted more populations than the dramatic physical and biological changes associated with the PHT.vertebrates | fossils | island | extinction | Pleistocene

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 98%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Vertebrate community on an ice-age Caribbean island

Steadman

Albury

Kakuk

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Decisions regarding which extinct species to include and recognize as valid or not in this checklist, and which names to synonymize or not, were elucidated from the primary taxonomic references listed in the comments and the following references: Kuhn (1964), Auffenberg (1974), Młynarski (1976), Jackson (1988), Bour (1994), Ye (1994), Holman (1995), Meylan (1995), Gaffney (1996), Hutterer et al (1998), de la Fuente (1999, Lapparent de Broin (2000, 2001, Dodd (2001), Franz and Quitmyer (2005), Lapparent de Broin et al (2006b,c), Steadman et al (2007), Pedrono (2008, Takahashi et al (2008), and Hansen et al (2010).…”

Section: E2 Conservation Biology Of Freshwater Turtles and Tortoisesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Turtles and Tortoises of the World During the Rise and Global Spread of Humanity: First Checklist and Review of Extinct Pleistocene and Holocene Chelonians.

Rhodin¹,

Thomson²,

Georgalis³

et al. 2015

Chelonian Research Monographs

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ABsTrAcT. -We provide a first checklist and review of all recognized taxa of the world's extinct Pleistocene and Holocene (Quaternary) turtles and tortoises that existed during the early rise and global expansion of humanity, and most likely went extinct through a combination of earlier hominin (e.g., Homo erectus, H. neanderthalensis) and later human (H. sapiens) exploitation, as well as being affected by concurrent global or regional climatic and habitat changes. This checklist complements the broader listing of all modern and extant turtles and tortoises by the Turtle Taxonomy Working Group (2014). We provide a comprehensive listing of taxonomy, names, synonymies, and stratigraphic distribution of all chelonian taxa that have gone extinct from approximately the boundary between the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene, ca. 2.6 million years ago, up through 1500 AD, at the beginning of modern times. We also provide details on modern turtle and tortoise taxa that have gone extinct since 1500 AD. This checklist currently includes 100 fossil turtle and tortoise taxa, including 84 named and apparently distinct species, and 16 additional taxa that appear to represent additional valid species, but are only identified to genus or family. Modern extinct turtles and tortoises include 8 species, 3 subspecies, and 1 unnamed taxon, for 12 taxa. Of the extinct fossil taxa, terrestrial tortoises of the family Testudinidae (including many large-bodied island forms) are the most numerous, with 60 taxa. When the numbers for fossil tortoises are combined with the 61 modern (living and extinct) species of tortoises, of the 121 tortoise species that have existed at some point since the beginning of the Pleistocene, 69 (57.0%) have gone extinct. This likely reflects the high vulnerability of these large and slow terrestrial (often insular) species primarily to human exploitation. The other large-bodied terrestrial turtles, the 000e.2 Conservation Biology of Freshwater Turtles and Tortoises • Chelonian Research Monographs, No. 5As an addition to the annual checklist of extant modern turtle taxa (Turtle Taxonomy Working Group [TTWG] 2014), we here present an annotated checklist of extinct Pleistocene and Holocene turtle and tortoise species that existed in relatively recent times, prior to 1500 AD, during the history of the rise and global spread of humanity and concurrent global climatic and habitat changes. These species, recorded from archaeological and paleontological sites from the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs (Quaternary period), approximately the last 2.6 million years, are currently considered to be valid, and not synonymous with modern (post-1500 AD) taxa.These fossil species, including some unnamed taxa of indeterminate or undescribed generic or specific allocation, represent the majority of the chelonian diversity that has gone extinct relatively recently. Many of these taxa were likely extirpated by anthropogenic exploitation over the relatively long prehistory of earlier hominin (e.g., Homo erectus, H. neanderthalensi...

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