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The Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene Rails (Gruiformes: Rallidae) of Laguna De Tagua Tagua Formation, Central Chile, with the Description of a New Extinct Giant Coot

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The Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene Rails (Gruiformes: Rallidae) of Laguna De Tagua Tagua Formation, Central Chile, with the Description of a New Extinct Giant Coot Journal of South American Earth Sciences 104 (2020) 102839 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of South American Earth Sciences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jsames The late Pleistocene-early Holocene rails (Gruiformes: Rallidae) of Laguna de Tagua Tagua Formation, central Chile, with the description of a new extinct giant coot Jhonatan Alarcon-Mu´ noz~ a,b,c,d,*, Rafael Labarca b,e, Sergio Soto-Acuna~ a,b,d a Red Paleontologica´ U-Chile, Laboratorio de Ontogenia y Filogenia, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Chile, Las Palmeras, 3425, Santiago, Chile b Corporacion´ Laguna de Taguatagua, Av. Libertador Bernardo O’Higgins 351, Santiago, Chile c Laboratorio de Zoología de Vertebrados, Departamento de Ciencias Ecologicas,´ Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Chile, Las Palmeras, 3425, Santiago, Chile d Kaytreng Consultores. Jos´e Domingo Canas~ 1640, DP, 1502, Nu~ noa,~ Santiago, Chile e Escuela de Arqueología and Transdisciplinary Center for Quaternary Research (TAQUACH), Universidad Austral de Chile, Puerto Montt, Chile ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Rallidae, which includes coots, crakes and moorhens, is one of the most speciose families among the Gruiformes. Late Pleistocene-early Holocene This family exhibits a pattern of diversification that has involved significant episodes of regional expansion and Rallidae speciation resulting in the presence of members of this group in every continent with the exception of Antarctica. Central Chile In this work, we describe the diversity of fossil rallids from late Pleistocene-early Holocene deposits of the Laguna Extinct species de Tagua Tagua Formation located in central Chile. We report the presence of the extant taxa, Fulica armillata, Fulica rufifrons, Fulica cf. F. rufifrons, Fulica cf. F. ardesiaca and Pardirallus sanguinolentus, and also identify a large new extinct coot, Fulica montanei sp. nov. represented by three left tarsometatarsi. Fulica montanei corresponds to the first extinct rallid recorded in the Quaternary of South America. The most remarkable feature of the tarso­ metatarsus of Fulica montanei is their large size, which falls in the range of the extant Andean species Fulica cornuta and the extinct Fulica prisca from New Zealand. An autapomorphic combination of characters observed in the tarsometatarsi also supports the erection of a new species. These rails coexisted with extinct megafauna, as well as small and medium-sized vertebrates and, presumably, with humans, constituting a faunal assemblage with no analogous today. Fulica montanei probably became extinct during the late Pleistocene-early Holocene. 1. Introduction Pacific,Caribbean, Madagascar, Mediterranean) suggesting that insular isolation stimulated rapid and repeated speciation processes, which The family Rallidae includes small to medium-sized aquatic or semi- usually implied the loss of flight ability (Olson, 1973; Ripley, 1977; aquatic birds commonly known as coots, crakes and moorhens (Taylor, Holdaway et al., 2001; Alcover et al., 2005; Kirchman and Steadman, 2010; Winkler et al., 2020). The group includes around 135–143 2005, 2007; Mcminn et al., 2005; Gill et al., 2010; Worthy and Boles, currently recognized species grouped within 33–40 genera and repre­ 2011; Mather et al., 2018; Hume, 2019; Hume and Martill, 2019, among senting about 1.3% of current known birds (Taylor, 1998; Houde, 2009; others). Clements et al., 2012). The family exhibits a diversificationpattern that In South America the rallid fossil record is scarce and comes mostly involved several episodes of regional expansion and speciation probably from Quaternary deposits. Older putative rallids (Alvarenga, 1988; since the Eocene (García-R et al., 2014, García-R et al., 2020). As a Noriega, 1995) (i.e Oligocene-Pliocene), have not been formally result, Rallidae is represented in every habitable continent at present described (Tambussi and Degrange (2013)) or taxa erected have been (García-R et al., 2014). This process of diversification was partially subsequently reassigned to other families (Mourer-Chauvir´e, 2000; aided by the great dispersal ability of these birds and by their capability Noriega and Agnolin, 2008). With respect to the Quaternary record, to exploit different ecological opportunities (García-R et al., 2014). An Olson (1977) questioned the validity of the species Euryonotus bra­ important portion of the rail’s fossil record comes from islands (i.e East chypterus and Euryonotus argentinus described by Mercerat in 1897 from * Corresponding author. Corporacion´ Laguna de Taguatagua, Av. Libertador Bernardo O’Higgins 351, Santiago, Chile. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J. Alarcon-Mu´ noz),~ [email protected] (R. Labarca), [email protected] (S. Soto-Acuna).~ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsames.2020.102839 Received 26 May 2020; Received in revised form 11 August 2020; Accepted 18 August 2020 Available online 27 August 2020 0895-9811/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. J. Alarcon-Mu´ noz~ et al. Journal of South American Earth Sciences 104 (2020) 102839 the late Pleistocene of Buenos Aires, although, the same author sug­ and Gonzalez-Cifuentes,´ 2017). Three species inhabit ecosystems in the ◦ 0 ◦ gested the presence of an extinct flightless rail from the island of Fer­ Andean altiplano (~17 5 -27 S, ~3000 msnm): the slate-colored coot nando de Noronha in Brazil without offering a formal description (Fulica ardesiaca Tschudi), the horned coot (Fulica cornuta Bonaparte) (Olson, 1977, 1981). Other findings come from scattered localities in and giant coot (Fulica gigantea Eydoux and Soulyet) (Couve et al., 2016; Perú, Ecuador, Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, from which only extant Martínez-Pina~ and Gonzalez-Cifuentes,´ 2017), while the remaining forms have been recognized (Campbell, 1979; Tonni and Laza, 1980; rallids are commonly found in low-altitude areas ranging from the ◦ Humphrey et al., 1993; Vezzosi et al., 2010; Cenizo et al., 2015). semiarid valleys in north-central Chile (~27 S) to southern Patagonia ◦ In Chile, the rallids are currently represented by the genera Fulica, (53–54 S). The only exception to this is the common gallinule (Gallinula Gallinula, Laterallus, Pardirallus, Porzana, Porphyrio, Porphyriops and galeata Lichtenstein) confined to low-altitude freshwater bodies in the ◦ 0 ◦ Rallus, counting at least 14 extant species, some of them resident while northern portion of the country (~17 5 -21 S) (Couve et al., 2016). others reported as occasional sightings (Couve et al., 2016; In the present contribution we describe the diversity of fossil rails Martínez-Pina~ and Gonzalez-Cifuentes,´ 2017). Among these, Fulica is the from late Pleistocene-early Holocene deposits of the Laguna de Tagua most speciose genus, with six species (Couve et al., 2016; Martínez-Pina~ Tagua Formation, located in central Chile (Fig. 1). Additionally, we Fig. 1. Geographic location of the study area and geological setting. (A) Geographic location in South American context. (B) Geographic location in regional context. (C) Geological setting of Laguna de Tagua Tagua area. (D) Scheme of the studied stratigraphic section of Laguna de Tagua Tagua Formation and detail of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. Modified from Labarca et al. (2020). 2 J. Alarcon-Mu´ noz~ et al. Journal of South American Earth Sciences 104 (2020) 102839 report a new large species, Fulica montanei sp. nov. based on the Table 1 description of three left tarsometatarsi. Fulica montanei corresponds to Metatarsi measurements (in mm) of different Fulica species. Measurements ac­ the first Quaternary extinct rallid recorded in South America. The cording to von den Driesch (1976). findings presented here help to improve our knowledge about the late- Repository Code Taxa GL Bp SC Bd Pleistocene-early Holocene diversity of coots in South America. SGO.PV.22320 F. montanei 80,69 13,49 5,23 13,74 SGO.PV.22321 F. montanei 77,50 – 5,03 – 2. Materials and methods SGO.PV23240 F. montanei – – – 12,25 SGO.PV.27789 F. armillata 73,25 10,82 4,60 10,9 In this work we describe twenty-two appendicular bones of rallids, SGO.PV.23236 F. armillata 63,25 10,43 4,23 10,87 SGO.PV.22239 F. armillata – – 4,47 10,69 all of them found disarticulated during excavations led by the archae­ SGO.PV.23334 F. armillata 66,74 11,22 4,66 11,71 ologist Lautaro Núnez~ in 1990 in Laguna de Tagua Tagua. These fossil LSU 83948 F. gigantea 95,0 15,7 5,7 15,2 specimens are housed in the Museo Nacional de Historia Natural de MACN-Or 2318a F. gigantea 99,6 16,37 6,8 16,21 Santiago de Chile (MNHNCL SGO.PV.). FLMNH UF39765 F. cornuta 79,9 13,8 4,7 14,2 UCHZV-322 F. ardesiaca 64,1 10,1 4,5 10,5 Quantitative and qualitative comparisons were made with extant MLP-PV-OR 49 F. armillata 70,5 11,07 4,9 11,43 and extinct coots from the following collections: Museo de Historia MACN-Or 68703 F. armillata 63,54 10,33 4,16 10,68 Natural de Santiago de Chile (MNHNCL), Laboratorio de Zoología de MACN-Or 68679 F. armillata 69,3 10,85 4,94 11,15 Vertebrados, Universidad de Chile, (UCHZV), Museo de La Plata, MACN-Or 37965 F. armillata 64,72 11,38 5,1 11,36 Argentina (MLP), Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales Bernardino MACN-Or 2306 B F. armillata 68,46 11,28 5,04 11,26 MMC 125 F. armillata 70,1 11,59 4,52 11,87 Rivadavia, Argentina (MACN), Museum of Natural Science, Louisiana MMC 295 F. armillata 66,28 10,43 3,69 9,91 State University, United States (LSU), Florida Museum of Natural His­ MMC 110 F. armillata 64,63 9,98 4,05 10,16 tory, United States (FLMNH), Canterbury Museum, New Zealand DJS-56 F. armillata 60,75 8,94 4,32 9,74 (CMNZ), Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, New Zealand DJS-227 F. armillata 64,94 10,5 4,4 10,33 ’ MNHN-551 F. armillata 63,47 11,02 4,4 11.4 (DM), Marcos Cenizo s personal collection (MMC) and Douglas Jack­ MACN-Or 54815 F.
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