The Tayassuidae (Mammalia, Artiodactyla) from the Quaternary of Entre Rios Province. A palaeofaunal review in Argentina

Abstract

The Tayassuidae has a wide geographic distribution and stratigraphic record during the Quaternary of South America. Three genera of Tayassuidae (Platygonus, Catagonus and Tayassu) are recognized in this continent. Argentina has the greatest diversity and abundance of fossil tayassuids in South America. In the Argentine Mesopotamian, the oldest tayassuid records are from the late Pleistocene of Corrientes and Entre Rios provinces, and from an archaeological site in the Holocene of Misiones Province. This paper aims to: 1) describe the tayassuid materials found in the Pleistocene in Entre Rios Province; 2) review and update the palaeontological record of the family in the Mesopotamian region during the Quaternary; and 3) check the geographic and stratigraphic distribution in South America, specially in Argentina, of the tayassuids from the Mesopotamian region. The palaeontological evidence indicates that in this area, Tayassu and Catagonus, the latter for the first time, are registered only in late Pleistocene sediments. Furthermore, the record of Tayassu and Catagonus during the late Pleistocene in Entre Ríos Province reflects a faunistic difference in comparison with the extant mammal fauna. Today, in the Mesopotamian region, T. pecari and T. tajacu are part of the mammalian fauna of Misiones Province. In the north of Corrientes Province there is possibly the most austral record of T. pecari. Catagonus reaches its most southern distribution in the north of Santiago del Estero and the northeast of Tucumán; therefore at present this tayassuid does not inhabit the Argentine Mesopotamian.

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

“…The material is very similar to those in MCTer collection (not numbered, reference collection), including the wear degree, and the postcranial material also has dimensions compatible with T. pecari (e.g. Oliveira et al, 2010;Dantas et al, 2013b;Gasparini and Ferrero, 2010;Gasparini et al, 2009Gasparini et al, , 2013, especially well developed mesial cingulum and molariform premolar, different from Tayassu tajacu which, besides presenting smaller dimensions, does not present accessory cusps. This species occurs in Pleistocene deposits from Minas Gerais, Bahia, Rio Grande do Sul and Tocantins (Cartelle, 1999;Oliveira and Kerber, 2009;Buchmann et al, 2017).…”

A new record of Tayassuidae (Mammalia: Cetartiodactyla) from the Pleistocene of northern Brazil

“…The South American Tayassuidae encompasses the extant Pecari tajacu (Linnaeus 1758), Tayassu pecari (Link 1795), Parachoerus wagneri (Rusconi 1930), and several extinct species recovered from Pliocene-Quaternary strata of this continent (e.g., Rusconi 1930, Gasparini & Zurita 2005, Gasparini & Ferrero 2010, Gasparini et al 2009, 2014, Avilla et al 2013, Montellano-Ballesteros et al 2014, Parisi Dutra et al 2017a; but see Frailey &Campbell 2012 anddiscussion in Parisi-Dutra et al 2017a,b). According to Parisi-Dutra et al (2017a), the Quaternary fossils include records of the three extant taxa, plus the extinct Platygonus Le Conte 1848, that surpassed the Pliocene/ Pleistocene boundary; Catagonus Ameghino 1904, with two extinct species: C. metropolitanus Ameghino, 1904 Gasparini et al 2009, 2013, 2014, 2019, Gasparini & Ubilla 2011, Parisi-Dutra et al 2017a.…”

Two new genera of peccaries (Mammalia, Artiodactyla, Tayassuidae) from upper Miocene deposits of the Amazon Basin

“…We follow Wilson and Reeder (2005) as authority for the generic names of the white-lipped peccary (Tayassu Fischer, 1814) and collared peccary (Pecari Reichenbach, 1835). Recent reviews of South American peccaries (Gasparini and Ferrero, 2009;Gasparini et al, 2010;Gasparini, 2011) have placed all of the late Pliocene and Pleistocene records of that continent into the genera Platygonus LeConte, 1848, Catagonus Ameghino, 1904, and Tayassu. According to those authors, the latter genus includes Pecari, a position with which we disagree, particularly in light of the considerable morphological and molecular evidence to the contrary.…”