New Mexico Geological Society Downloaded from: http://nmgs.nmt.edu/publications/guidebooks/11 The vertebrate fauna of the New Mexico Permian Alfred S. Romer, 1960, pp. 48-54 in: Rio Chama Country, Beaumont, E. C.; Read, C. B.; [eds.], New Mexico Geological Society 11th Annual Fall Field Conference Guidebook, 129 p. This is one of many related papers that were included in the 1960 NMGS Fall Field Conference Guidebook. Annual NMGS Fall Field Conference Guidebooks Every fall since 1950, the New Mexico Geological Society (NMGS) has held an annual Fall Field Conference that explores some region of New Mexico (or surrounding states). Always well attended, these conferences provide a guidebook to participants. Besides detailed road logs, the guidebooks contain many well written, edited, and peer-reviewed geoscience papers. These books have set the national standard for geologic guidebooks and are an essential geologic reference for anyone working in or around New Mexico. 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One printed copy of any materials from the NMGS website or our print and electronic publications may be made for individual use without our permission. Teachers and students may make unlimited copies for educational use. Any other use of these materials requires explicit permission. This page is intentionally left blank to maintain order of facing pages. 48 NEW MEXICO GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY ELEVENTH FIELD CONFERENCE THE VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF THE NEW MEXICO PERMIAN By ALFRED SHERWOOD ROMER Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University The only Paleozoic vertebrate assemblage of New vertebrates published in 1907-1911. About this time, Mexico worthy of note is that of the early Permian Abo however, Williston of the University of Chicago, then the and Cutler formations, mainly known from two areas in the leading student of fossil reptiles, visited New Haven. The Chama River drainage in Rio Arriba County. This is a Baldwin collection was opened up, prepared, and studied fauna of reptiles, amphibians and (rarely) fishes broadly by him. Its contents proved to be of remarkable interest, similar to that of the Wichita group redbeds of the early including, for example, the fine skeleton of a hitherto Permian of North Central Texas, but differing to some unkown large primitive reptile, Limnoscelis, as well as degree in composition. numerous remains of the carnivorous pelycosaur Sphena- HISTORY codon. Williston determined to relocate Baldwins sites. Few The fauna is of interest as one of the first to be noted decipherable labels were found with the materials. The spe- in the history of New Mexican geology and, incidentally, cimens had been shipped by narrow gauge from Durango, as one of the factors in initiating the famous feud between and for a time it was thought that part had come from the Cope and Marsh, the two greatest figures in American Cutler redbeds of the Animas Valley. But it seemed clear that vertebrate paleontology in the last century. most of the material, at any rate, came from Rio Arriba In the 1870s Marsh, then a rising (and well-to-do) County, and one or two localities were named on the labels, young Yale paleontologist, had hired the services of David although these were not to be found on maps then avail- Baldwin, a prospector who roamed northwestern New able. In 1911 Williston organized an exploratory trip Mexico with his faithful burro, to search the country for to this region, accompanied by the veteran collector Paul vertebrate fossils. In 1877 Baldwin discovered bones in Miller, Prof. Case of Michigan, and Prof. von Huene of the red sediments of the Chama Valley, both near Arroyo Tubingen, then visiting in this country. They outfitted de Agua and, farther north, at El Cobre Canyon, and ship- at Santa Fe and set forth up the Chama Valley. This ped a considerable quantity of material to New trip has become legendary, with many stories told of it Haven. Marsh, however, did not immediately realize later by Miller and Case: of Willistons mixed brown and its value ( most of it was not even unpacked for decades), black shoes, due to exchange on the sleeper to Santa Fe; and presently becoming dissatisfied with Baldwin, dispensed the purchase of a chicken, its pursuit through a pepper field, with his services. This he was to regret in future years, by big Huene and little Case and its eventual slaughter for Baldwin was promptly hired by Marshs alert rival, Cope by Williston; the near-drowning of the party by a flash of Philadelphia. Baldwin made a small Permian collection flood in the El Cobre arroyo; Huenes phenomonal appetite for Cope, but his major service to science was the discovery (hes a large man) and the consequent depletion of sup- of the Paleocene beds of the San Juan basin; the description plies and shortening of the trip. Roads were then almost of this important fauna was a major item in Copes rise non-existant and much of the travel was along the river to scientific fame. beds. The bonebed whence much of Baldwins material In the spring of 1878, at a meeting in Philadelphia, had come was identified, northwest of the village of Arroyo Cope announced the discovery of an important series of de Agua, and material collected along the bluff from this vertebrate fossils of Permian age in Texas. Marsh was point down the north bank of Salitral Creek; the El Cobre present and, remembering the unstudied Baldwin material, Canyon site visited by Baldwin was relocated. The fossils left the meeting early (so runs the legend 1, took the first collected were described in a 1913 volume by Williston and train back to New Haven, unwrapped a few packages, and Case. Miller soon revisited the Arroyo de Agua region and wrote a hasty four-page article describing several new Williston described further materials collected by him. genera and species from the New Mexican Permian. So Later collecting in this region has mainly been by superficial was the work that of two species which he des- the writer, and field workers under his direction, and by cribed as belonging to a single genus, one was the pely- University of California parties directed by C. L. Camp. cosaurian reptile Ophiacodon, the other an amphibian of I have briefly visited the region, working both the Salitral the genus Eryops! He rushed this paper to press in the Creek exposures and El Cobre Canyon, in 1926, 1931, American Journal of Science (which he controlled) and 1946 and 1952, and other Harvard workers went there this "beat" Cope to publication on the first discovery on three other occasions. Most important, however, has of Permian vertebrates in North America. The latter was, been the work of the University of California parties, who quite naturally, aggrieved at this unethical conduct and discovered and worked a new series of bone pockets east (it is said) pre-dated the separates of his own paper on and south of Arroyo de Agua in 1928, 1934 and 1935. the Texas material in an attempt to recover priority on the Langston collected for the University of California on discovery! several later occasions. Almost no attention was paid to the New Mexican Of fossil materials derived from this area, the types of fossils for the next thirty years and so little was known Baldwins material are in Peabody Museum, Yale Univer- of the New Mexican fauna that it is scarcely mentioned sity; nearly all the material collected by Williston, Case in Casess three-volume revision of Permo-Carboniferous and Miller is in the Chicago Natural History Museum, as are small collections made by me; in New York is a limited In honor of which I have named one of the New Mexican amount collected by Baldwin for Cope; at Harvard most Permian vertebrates Baldwinonus trux. of the Baldwin finds except the types and smaller collect- ( Fig. lo.f ihVe f ertebrate collecting area near Arroyo de Agua. A, Anderson quarry of University of California; B, Baldwin bonebed; CC, California quarries south- Off(/(,,/,\ east of Arroyode Agua; M, Miller bonebed. Except the California excava- tions most fossils have been obtained along the north bluff from B to about k‘\,0p ift the Point P. (Partly after Langston). /). -,/ / .4e9 -4 ( ,, MESA SALITRAL ..-7--4----■- C? / z / /4PI,7:11, , ,P a, //fitiN i k V---- \1!! 50 NEW MEXICO GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY ELEVENTH FIELD CONFERENCE ions made by various Harvard parties; at Berkeley the into the Chama about 1 3/4 miles west of that village. valuable materials collected by the University of California This was one of the original Baldwin localities, but has parties. been seldom visited, for the water supply was difficult THE ARROYO DE AGUA LOCALITIES and until advent of the jeep and improved trails in recent The Rio Puerco of Rio Arriba County (not to be con- years, it could be reached only by a difficult journey of fused with several other streams of the same name) is a several miles up the sandy bed of the arroyo.