ECOLOGY and the EXT]NCTTON of the DINOSAURS Robert E. Sl

Copy Link

Recommended publications

71St Annual Meeting Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Paris Las Vegas Las Vegas, Nevada, USA November 2 – 5, 2011 SESSION CONCURRENT SESSION CONCURRENT

ISSN 1937-2809 online Journal of Supplement to the November 2011 Vertebrate Paleontology Vertebrate Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Society of Vertebrate 71st Annual Meeting Paleontology Society of Vertebrate Las Vegas Paris Nevada, USA Las Vegas, November 2 – 5, 2011 Program and Abstracts Society of Vertebrate Paleontology 71st Annual Meeting Program and Abstracts COMMITTEE MEETING ROOM POSTER SESSION/ CONCURRENT CONCURRENT SESSION EXHIBITS SESSION COMMITTEE MEETING ROOMS AUCTION EVENT REGISTRATION, CONCURRENT MERCHANDISE SESSION LOUNGE, EDUCATION & OUTREACH SPEAKER READY COMMITTEE MEETING POSTER SESSION ROOM ROOM SOCIETY OF VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS SEVENTY-FIRST ANNUAL MEETING PARIS LAS VEGAS HOTEL LAS VEGAS, NV, USA NOVEMBER 2–5, 2011 HOST COMMITTEE Stephen Rowland, Co-Chair; Aubrey Bonde, Co-Chair; Joshua Bonde; David Elliott; Lee Hall; Jerry Harris; Andrew Milner; Eric Roberts EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Philip Currie, President; Blaire Van Valkenburgh, Past President; Catherine Forster, Vice President; Christopher Bell, Secretary; Ted Vlamis, Treasurer; Julia Clarke, Member at Large; Kristina Curry Rogers, Member at Large; Lars Werdelin, Member at Large SYMPOSIUM CONVENORS Roger B.J. Benson, Richard J. Butler, Nadia B. Fröbisch, Hans C.E. Larsson, Mark A. Loewen, Philip D. Mannion, Jim I. Mead, Eric M. Roberts, Scott D. Sampson, Eric D. Scott, Kathleen Springer PROGRAM COMMITTEE Jonathan Bloch, Co-Chair; Anjali Goswami, Co-Chair; Jason Anderson; Paul Barrett; Brian Beatty; Kerin Claeson; Kristina Curry Rogers; Ted Daeschler; David Evans; David Fox; Nadia B. Fröbisch; Christian Kammerer; Johannes Müller; Emily Rayfield; William Sanders; Bruce Shockey; Mary Silcox; Michelle Stocker; Rebecca Terry November 2011—PROGRAM AND ABSTRACTS 1 Members and Friends of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, The Host Committee cordially welcomes you to the 71st Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Las Vegas.
Resolving the Relationships of Paleocene Placental Mammals

Biol. Rev. (2015), pp. 000–000. 1 doi: 10.1111/brv.12242 Resolving the relationships of Paleocene placental mammals Thomas J. D. Halliday1,2,∗, Paul Upchurch1 and Anjali Goswami1,2 1Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, U.K. 2Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, U.K. ABSTRACT The ‘Age of Mammals’ began in the Paleocene epoch, the 10 million year interval immediately following the Cretaceous–Palaeogene mass extinction. The apparently rapid shift in mammalian ecomorphs from small, largely insectivorous forms to many small-to-large-bodied, diverse taxa has driven a hypothesis that the end-Cretaceous heralded an adaptive radiation in placental mammal evolution. However, the afﬁnities of most Paleocene mammals have remained unresolved, despite signiﬁcant advances in understanding the relationships of the extant orders, hindering efforts to reconstruct robustly the origin and early evolution of placental mammals. Here we present the largest cladistic analysis of Paleocene placentals to date, from a data matrix including 177 taxa (130 of which are Palaeogene) and 680 morphological characters. We improve the resolution of the relationships of several enigmatic Paleocene clades, including families of ‘condylarths’. Protungulatum is resolved as a stem eutherian, meaning that no crown-placental mammal unambiguously pre-dates the Cretaceous–Palaeogene boundary. Our results support an Atlantogenata–Boreoeutheria split at the root of crown Placentalia, the presence of phenacodontids as closest relatives of Perissodactyla, the validity of Euungulata, and the placement of Arctocyonidae close to Carnivora. Periptychidae and Pantodonta are resolved as sister taxa, Leptictida and Cimolestidae are found to be stem eutherians, and Hyopsodontidae is highly polyphyletic.
Oldest Known Euarchontan Tarsals and Affinities of Paleocene Purgatorius to Primates

Oldest known euarchontan tarsals and affinities of Paleocene Purgatorius to Primates Stephen G. B. Chestera,b,c,1, Jonathan I. Blochd, Doug M. Boyere, and William A. Clemensf aDepartment of Anthropology and Archaeology, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Brooklyn, NY 11210; bNew York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology, New York, NY 10024; cDepartment of Anthropology, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520; dFlorida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611; eDepartment of Evolutionary Anthropology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708; and fUniversity of California Museum of Paleontology, Berkeley, CA 94720 Edited by Neil H. Shubin, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, and approved December 24, 2014 (received for review November 12, 2014) Earliest Paleocene Purgatorius often is regarded as the geologi- directly outside Placentalia with the contemporary condylarths cally oldest primate, but it has been known only from fossilized (archaic ungulates) Protungulatum and Oxyprimus (10–12). How- dentitions since it was first described half a century ago. The den- ever, the addition of new tarsal data for Purgatorius and increased tition of Purgatorius is more primitive than those of all known taxon sampling, including a colugo and four plesiadapiforms, using living and fossil primates, leading some researchers to suggest this same matrix, results in a strict consensus tree that supports that it lies near the ancestry of all other primates; however, others a monophyletic Euarchonta with Sundatheria (treeshrews and have questioned its affinities to primates or even to placental colugos) as the sister group to a fairly unresolved Primates clade mammals. Here we report the first (to our knowledge) nondental that includes Purgatorius (Fig.
The Oldest Skull of an Afrotherian Mammal

Ocepeia (Middle Paleocene of Morocco): The Oldest Skull of an Afrotherian Mammal Emmanuel Gheerbrant1*, Mbarek Amaghzaz2, Baadi Bouya2, Florent Goussard1, Charle`ne Letenneur1 1 Centre de Recherches sur la Paleóbiodiversite´ et les Paleóenvironnements, CNRS-MNHN-UPMC, Museúm National d’Histoire Naturelle, Dpnt Histoire de la Terre, Paris, France, 2 Office Che´rifien des Phosphates (OCP SA), Centre Minier de Khouribga, Khouribga, Morocco Abstract While key early(iest) fossils were recently discovered for several crown afrotherian mammal orders, basal afrotherians, e.g., early Cenozoic species that comprise sister taxa to Paenungulata, Afroinsectiphilia or Afrotheria, are nearly unknown, especially in Africa. Possible stem condylarth-like relatives of the Paenungulata (hyraxes, sea-cows, elephants) include only Abdounodus hamdii and Ocepeia daouiensis from the Selandian of Ouled Abdoun Basin, Morocco, both previously only documented by lower teeth. Here, we describe new fossils of Ocepeia, including O.grandis n. sp., and a sub-complete skull of O. daouiensis, the first known before the Eocene for African placentals. O.daouiensis skull displays a remarkable mosaic of autapomophic, ungulate-like and generalized eutherian-like characters. Autapomorphies include striking anthropoid-like characters of the rostrum and dentition. Besides having a basically eutherian-like skull construction, Ocepeia daouiensis is characterized by ungulate-like, and especially paenungulate-like characters of skull and dentition (e.g., selenodonty). However, some plesiomorphies such as absence of hypocone exclude Ocepeia from crown Paenungulata. Such a combination of plesiomorphic and derived characters best fits with a stem position of Ocepeia relative to Paenungulata. In our cladistic analyses Ocepeia is included in Afrotheria, but its shared derived characters with paenungulates are not optimized as exclusive synapomorphies.
Gheerbrant Et Al 2014 Ocepeia

Ocepeia (Middle Paleocene of Morocco): The Oldest Skull of an Afrotherian Mammal Emmanuel Gheerbrant, Mbarek Amaghzaz, Baâdi Bouya, Florent Goussard, Charlène Letenneur To cite this version: Emmanuel Gheerbrant, Mbarek Amaghzaz, Baâdi Bouya, Florent Goussard, Charlène Letenneur. Ocepeia (Middle Paleocene of Morocco): The Oldest Skull of an Afrotherian Mammal. PLoS ONE, Public Library of Science, 2014, 9 (2), pp.e89739. 10.1371/journal.pone.0089739. mnhn-02264867 HAL Id: mnhn-02264867 https://hal-mnhn.archives-ouvertes.fr/mnhn-02264867 Submitted on 7 Aug 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Ocepeia (Middle Paleocene of Morocco): The Oldest Skull of an Afrotherian Mammal Emmanuel Gheerbrant1*, Mbarek Amaghzaz 2, Baadi Bouya 2, Florent Goussard 1, Charle `ne Letenneur 1 1 Centre de Recherches sur la Paleóbiodiversite´ et les Paleóenvironnements, CNRS-MNHN-UPMC, Museúm National d’Histoire Naturelle, Dpnt Histoire de la Terre, Paris, France, 2 Office Che´rifien des Phosphates (OCP SA), Centre Minier de Khouribga, Khouribga, Morocco Abstract While key early(iest) fossils were recently discovered for several crown afrotherian mammal orders, basal afrotherians, e.g., early Cenozoic species that comprise sister taxa to Paenungulata, Afroinsectiphilia or Afrotheria, are nearly unknown, especially in Africa.
Protungulatum, Confirmed Cretaceous Occurrence of an Otherwise Paleocene Eutherian (Placental?) Mammal

J Mammal Evol DOI 10.1007/s10914-011-9162-1 ORIGINAL PAPER Protungulatum, Confirmed Cretaceous Occurrence of an Otherwise Paleocene Eutherian (Placental?) Mammal J. David Archibald & Yue Zhang & Tony Harper & Richard L. Cifelli # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011 Abstract Neither pre-Cenozoic crown eutherian mammals Introduction (placentals) nor archaic ungulates (“condylarths”)are known with certainty based on the fossil record. Herein The archaic ungulate or “condylarth” Protungulatum we report a new species of the Paleocene archaic ungulate donnae was described from Bug Creek Anthills in (“condylarth”) Protungulatum from undisputed Late Creta- northeastern Montana, U. S. A. (Sloan and Van Valen ceous aged rocks in Montana USA based on an isolated last 1965). The sequence including Bug Creek Anthills and upper premolar, indicating rare representatives of these several other localities was thought to be Late Cretaceous in common early Tertiary mammals appeared in North age, arguing for a gradual appearance of mammals America a minimum of 300 k years before the extinction otherwise known only from the Paleocene, and a gradual of non-avian dinosaurs. The other 1200 mammal specimens disappearance of typical Late Cretaceous mammals and from the locality are characteristic Late Cretaceous taxa. dinosaurs (Sloan et al. 1986). This work argued that there This discovery overturns the current hypothesis that archaic were gradual rather than catastrophic extinctions at the ungulates did not appear in North America until after the Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) or Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) boundary and also suggests that boundary. Although common co-occurrences of dinosaurs other reports of North American Late Cretaceous archaic and Late Cretaceous mammals at Bug Creek Anthills ungulates may be correct.
A Radiation of Arboreal Basal Eutherian Mammals Beginning in the Late Cretaceous of India

A radiation of arboreal basal eutherian mammals beginning in the Late Cretaceous of India Anjali Goswamia,b,1, Guntupalli V. R. Prasadc, Paul Upchurchb, Doug M. Boyerd, Erik R. Seifferte, Omkar Vermaf, Emmanuel Gheerbrantg, and John J. Flynnh aDepartment of Genetics, Evolution, and Environment, bDepartment of Earth Sciences, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom; cDepartment of Geology, Centre for Advanced Studies, University of Delhi, Delhi 110 007, India; dDepartment of Anthropology and Archaeology, Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Brooklyn, NY 11210; eDepartment of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-8081; fSchool of Sciences, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi 110 068, India; gUnité Mixte de Recherche 7207 du Centre National de la Recherche Scientiﬁque (CR2P), Département Histoire de la Terre, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, 75005 Paris, France; and hDivision of Paleontology and Richard Gilder Graduate School, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024 Edited* by Elwyn L. Simons, Duke University, Durham, NC, and approved August 15, 2011 (received for review June 6, 2011) India’s Late Cretaceous fossil mammals include the only undis- cluding placentals and their stem relatives) are known from the puted pre-Tertiary Gondwanan eutherians, such as Deccanolestes. Late Cretaceous of Laurasia (North America, Europe, and Asia) Recent studies have suggested a relationship between Deccano- (9), and although a few have been suggested as possible pla- lestes and African and European Paleocene adapisoriculids, which centals [e.g., Protungulatum (10)], none are unequivocally sup- have been variably identiﬁed as stem euarchontans, stem pri- ported as a Cretaceous placental mammal (2).
Geological Setting of Vertebrate Microfossil Localities Across the Cretaceous-Paleogene Boundary in Southwestern Saskatchewan, Canada

Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences Geological setting of vertebrate microfossil localities across the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary in southwestern Saskatchewan, Canada Journal: Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences Manuscript ID: cjes-2015-0038.R1 Manuscript Type: Article Date Submitted by the Author: 20-Apr-2015 Complete List of Authors: Redman, Cory; Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, Gardner, JamesDraft D.; Royal Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology, Scott, Craig; Royal Tyrell Museum of Palaeontology, Braman, Dennis; Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology Keyword: Maastrichtian, Paleocene, microvertebrates, mammals, terrestrial https://mc06.manuscriptcentral.com/cjes-pubs Page 1 of 63 Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences Geological setting of vertebrate microfossil localities across the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary in southwestern Saskatchewan, Canada Cory M. Redman, James D. Gardner, Craig S. Scott, and Dennis R. Braman Cory M. Redman, James D. Gardner, Craig S. Scott, and Dennis R. Braman Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology,Draft P.O. Box 7500, Drumheller AB T0J 0Y0, Canada Corresponding author: Cory M. Redman (e-mail: [email protected] ) 1 https://mc06.manuscriptcentral.com/cjes-pubs Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences Page 2 of 63 Abstract: The Frenchman and Ravenscrag formations of southwestern Saskatchewan, Canada, record an apparently continuous sequence of nonmarine clastic sediments across the Cretaceous- Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary. Extensive exposures of these fossil-rich sediments occur in the Frenchman River Valley, near the towns of Ravenscrag, Eastend, and Shaunavon, and have been a focus of study since the 1970s. Despite this long history of investigation, a comprehensive account of the geographic and stratigraphic positions of many of the significant fossil localities has yet to be published.
Developmental Influence on Evolutionary Rates and the Origin of Placental Mammal Tooth Complexity

Developmental influence on evolutionary rates and the origin of placental mammal tooth complexity Aidan M. C. Couzensa,b,1, Karen E. Searsb, and Martin Rücklina aVertebrate Evolution, Development and Ecology, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Postbus 9517, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands; and bDepartment of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095 Edited by Neil H. Shubin, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, and approved March 1, 2021 (received for review October 10, 2020) Development has often been viewed as a constraining force on Placental mammals are the most diverse extant mammalian morphological adaptation, but its precise influence, especially on group, comprising more than 6,000 living species spread across evolutionary rates, is poorly understood. Placental mammals provide 19 extant orders, and this taxonomic diversity is reflected in their a classic example of adaptive radiation, but the debate around rate range of tooth shapes and dietary ecologies (12). Many extant and drivers of early placental evolution remains contentious. A placental orders, especially those with omnivorous or herbivorous hallmark of early dental evolution in many placental lineages was ecologies (e.g., artiodactyls, proboscideans, rodents, and primates), a transition from a triangular upper molar to a more complex convergently evolved a rectangular upper molar cusp pattern from a upper molar with a rectangular cusp pattern better specialized for placental ancestor with a more triangular cusp pattern (19–21). This crushing. To examine how development influenced this transition, resulted from separate additions in each lineage of a novel poster- we simulated dental evolution on “landscapes” built from differ- olingual cusp, the "hypocone’’ [sensu (19)], to the tritubercular upper ent parameters of a computational model of tooth morphogene- molar (Fig.
Vertebrate Paleontology of Montana

VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY OF MONTANA John R. Horner1 and Dale A. Hanson2 1Chapman University, Orange, California; Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana 2South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, Rapid City, South Dakota (1) INTRODUCTION derived concerning the evolution, behavior, and paleo- Montana is renowned for its rich paleontological ecology of vertebrate fossil taxa from Montana. treasures, particularly those of vertebrate animals All Paleozoic vertebrates from Montana come such as fi shes, dinosaurs, and mammals. For exam- from marine sediments, whereas the Mesozoic as- ple, the most speciose fi sh fauna in the world comes semblages are derived from transgressive–regressive from Fergus County. The fi rst dinosaur remains noted alternating marine and freshwater deposits, and the from the western hemisphere came from an area near Cenozoic faunas are derived strictly from freshwater the mouth of the Judith River in what would become terrestrial environments. Fergus County. The fi rst Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, (2) PALEOZOIC VERTEBRATES and many more since, have come from Garfi eld and McCone Counties. The fi rst dinosaur recognized to Two vertebrate assemblages are known from the show the relationship between dinosaurs and birds Paleozoic, one of Early Devonian age, and the other of came from Carbon County, and the fi rst dinosaur eggs, Late Mississippian age. embryos, and nests revealing dinosaur social behav- a. Early Devonian (Emsian: 407–397 Ma) iors were found in Teton County. The fi rst dinosaur Beartooth Butte Formation confi rmed to have denned in burrows was found in The oldest vertebrate remains found in Montana Beaverhead County. come from the Beartooth Butte Formation exposed Although Montana is not often thought of for in the Big Belt and Big Snowy Mountains of central mammal fossils, a great diversity of late Mesozoic Montana.
Untangling the Multiple Ecological Radiations of Early Mammals

TREE 2553 No. of Pages 14 Trends in Ecology & Evolution Review Untangling the Multiple Ecological Radiations of Early Mammals David M. Grossnickle ,1,* Stephanie M. Smith,2,@ and Gregory P. Wilson1,@ The ecological diversification of early mammals is one of the most globally trans- Highlights formative events in Earth’s history and the Cretaceous Terrestrial Revolution Multiple stem and early mammal (KTR) and end-Cretaceous mass extinction are commonly hailed as catalysts. groups experienced large-scale eco- However, a confounding issue when examining this diversification is that it logical radiations, including Jurassic mammaliaforms, Late Cretaceous comprised nested radiations of mammalian subclades within the broader multituberculates, Late Cretaceous scope of mammalian evolution. In the past 200 million years, various indepen- metatherians, and Paleogene placentals. dent groups experienced large-scale radiations, each involving ecological diversification from ancestral lineages of small insectivores; examples include Small insectivores or omnivores are the progenitors of each ecological radiation, Jurassic mammaliaforms, Late Cretaceous metatherians, and Cenozoic placen- which involve rapid diversifications of tals. Here, we review these ecological radiations, highlighting the nuanced dietsandmodesoflocomotion. complexity of early mammal evolution, the value of ecomorphological fossil data, and the importance of phylogenetic context in macroevolutionary studies. There are three main periods of ecologi- cal diversification (Early–Middle
A Latest Cretaceous (Earliest Puercan?) Local Fauna, Hell Creek Formation, Southeastern Montana

Paludicola 10(1):50-91 September 2014 © by the Rochester Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology PRELIMINARY REPORT ON THE MAMMALS FROM LANE'S LITTLE JAW SITE QUARRY: A LATEST CRETACEOUS (EARLIEST PUERCAN?) LOCAL FAUNA, HELL CREEK FORMATION, SOUTHEASTERN MONTANA Thomas S. Kelly Research Associate, Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles, California 90007, USA ABSTRACT New records of mammalian fossils that are associated with non-avian dinosaurs from a quarry in the upper Hell Creek Formation of Powder River County, Montana, are described and include the following taxa: Meniscoessus robustus; Mesodma spp.; ?Cimolodon sp.; Turgidodon rhaister; Glasbius twitchelli; Protolambda mcgilli new species; Pediomys elegans; ?Leptalestes cooki; ?Leptalestes sp.; Didelphodon vorax; cf. Eodelphis sp.; Procerberus sp. (large); ?Procerberus sp. (small); Cimolestes sp.; Baioconodon sp., cf. B. nordicus; and Paleoungulatum hooleyi new genus and species. Stratigraphic evidence suggests that the mammalian and lower vertebrate taxa from the quarry are contemporaneous and late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) in age. INTRODUCTION METHODS The upper Hell Creek Formation and the Measurements of teeth were made with an overlying Tullock Member of the Fort Union optical micrometer to the nearest 0.01 mm, whereas Formation of eastern Montana have long been known dentary measurements were made with vernier for their latest Cretaceous (Lancian North American caliper to the nearest 0.1 mm. Dental terminology for Land Mammal Age) and early Paleocene (Puercan Metatheria and Eutheria follows Nessov et al. (1998), North American Land Mammal Age) mammalian for Multituberculata follows Clemens (1963), and for assemblages, respectively (e.g., Sloan and Van isolated teeth of non-avian dinosaurs follows Larson Valen, 1965; Archibald, 1982; Lofgren, 1995; Cifelli and Currie (2013).