Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana ISSN: 1405-3322 Sociedad Geológica Mexicana, A.C. Carbot-Chanona, Gerardo; Eng-Ponce, Joaquín; Gómez-Pérez, Luis Enrique Description of the Neochoerus specimens from the late Pleistocene (Rancholabrean) of Chiapas, and comments on the taxonomic identity of the fossil capybaras from other Mexican localities Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana, vol. 72, no. 1, e021019, 2020 Sociedad Geológica Mexicana, A.C. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18268/BSGM2020v72n1a021019 Available in: https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=94366149003 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System Redalyc More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain and Journal's webpage in redalyc.org Portugal Project academic non-profit, developed under the open access initiative Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana / 72 (1) / 2020 / 1 Description of the Neochoerus specimens from the late Pleistocene (Rancholabrean) of Chiapas, and comments on the taxonomic identity of the fossil capybaras from other Mexican localities Descripción de especimenes de Neochoerus del Pleistoceno (Rancholabreano) tardío de Chiapas, y comentarios sobre la taxonomía de los capibaras fósiles de otras localidades mexicanas Gerardo Carbot-Chanona1,*, Joaquín Eng-Ponce2, Luis Enrique Gómez-Pérez1 ABSTRACT 1 Museo de Paleontología “Eliseo Palacios Agu- ABSTRACT RESUMEN ilera”, Dirección de Paleontología, Secretaría de Medio Ambiente e Historia Natural. Calza- da de Los Hombres Ilustres s/n, 29000, Tuxtla The capybara Neochoerus aesopi is an El capibara Neochoerus aesopi es un roedor Gutiérrez, Chiapas, Mexico. extinct giant rodent that inhabited gigante extinto que habitó Norte, Centro y North, Central, and South America 2 Laboratorio de Paleontología, Facultad de Sudamérica durante el Rancholabreano/ Biología, Universidad Michoacana de San during the Rancholabrean/Lujanian Lujaniano (Pleistoceno tardío). En Nicolás de Hidalgo. Av. Francisco J. Múgica (late Pleistocene). In Mexico, only N. México, sólo N. aesopi ha sido reportado s/n, Ciudad Universitaria, 58030, Morelia, aesopi has been reported from Tlapa- para Tlapacoya, Estado de México; el lago Michoacán, Mexico. coya, Mexico State; Chapala lake, de Chapala, Jalisco y La Cinta-Portalitos, Jalisco; and La Cinta-Portalitos, on * Corresponding author: (Carbot-Chanona) en los límites de Michoacán-Guanajuato. the border of Michoacán and Gua- [email protected] Aquí describimos los restos de N. aesopi najuato. Here, we describe N. aesopi encontrados en los sedimentos del Pleisto- remains from the late Pleistocene ceno tardío que afloran en la localidad Los at Los Mangos locality, Villaflores municipality, Chiapas, Mexico. In Mangos, en el Municipio de Villaflores, addition, the capybara material Chiapas, México. También, reexamina- from Jalisco and Puebla, referred as mos el material de capibaras de Jalisco Hydrochoerus sp. and Neochoerus sp., y Puebla (referido como Hydrochoerus sp. respectively, is reexamined. The man- y Neochoerus sp., respectivamente). Las dibular and dental morphological características morfológicas mandibulares characteristics and measurements of y dentales, así como las medidas de los the specimens examined from Jalisco especímenes examinados de Jalisco y To cite this article: and Puebla allow this material to be Puebla permiten referirlos también como Carbot-Chanona, G., Eng-Ponce, J., Gómez- referred as N. aesopi. The definitive N. aesopi. La identificación definitiva de Pérez, L.E., 2020, Description of the identification of this species broadens esta especie amplía su rango geográfico en Neochoerus specimens from the late Pleistocene its spacial range in North America. América del Norte. (Rancholabrean) of Chiapas, and comments on the taxonomic identity of the fossil Neochoe- Keywords: Capybara, Palabras clave: Capibara, Neo- capybaras from other Mexican localities: rus, Hydrochoerus, taxonomy, choerus, Hydrochoerus, tax- Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana, Pleistocene, Mexico. 72 (1), A021019. http://dx.doi.org/10.18268/ onomía, Pleistoceno, México. BSGM2020v72n1a021019 Manuscript received: March 10, 2019 Corrected manuscript received: April 10, 2019 Manuscript accepted: April 18, 2019 Peer Review under the responsability of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. in the late Pleistocene of Chiapas This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) Neochoerus http://dx.doi.org/10.18268/BSGM2020v72n1a021019 Artícle A021019 2 / Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana / 72 (1) / 2020 1. Introduction Bolivia; (iv) N. fontanai from late Pliocene to early Pleistocene of Villa Ballester, Buenos Aires, The capybaras (Rodentia: Caviidae: Hydrocho- Argentina (although Mones [1991] considered it erinae) are large rodents that lived in North and a nomen dubium); (v) N. sulcidens from the Lujanian INTRODUCTION South America from the Miocene to the recent. (late Pleistocene) of Brazil and Uruguay; and (vi) Only two genera are known from the late Pleis- N. aesopi from the Rancholabrean/Lujanian (late tocene, Hydrochoerus and Neochoerus (Kurtén and Pleistocene) of North, Central, and South Amer- Anderson, 1980). Hydrochoerus is represented by ica (Mones, 1991; Lucas et al., 2008). Occasionally, two living species: H. hydrochaeris and H. isthmius. N. pinckneyi from South Carolina, USA (Hay, 1923, Today, Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris inhabits Venezuela, 1926) has been considered valid by some authors Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and eastern Colombia. (e.g., Álvarez, 1969; Kurtén and Anderson, 1980; It also inhabits the Amazon basin of Ecuador, Rufolo, 1998; Carranza-Castañeda, 2016), but it Peru, and Bolivia, as well as northeastern to south- was considered a synonymy of N. aesopi by Mones ern Argentina (Mones and Ojasti, 1986). The (1991), because both taxa came from the same species has a late Pleistocene fossil record from locality. Curaçao, Uruguay, Brazil, and Argentina (Mones, The only North American Rancholabrean spe- 1991; Kerber and Ribeiro, 2011) and Hydrochoe- cies, N. aesopi, has been described in Mexico from rus isthmius inhabits Panama, western Colombia, Tlapacoya, Mexico State (referred to as N. pinckneyi; and western Venezuela (Woods and Kilpatrick, Álvarez, 1969); La Cinta-Portalitos locality, on the 2005) and does not have a fossil record. Only border of Michoacán and Guanajuato; and Cha- two species of Hydrochoerus are represented in the pala lake, Jalisco (Lucas, 2008; Eng-Ponce, 2018). fossil record: H. ballesterensis from late Pliocene to Other records of the genus include N. cordobai early Pleistocene of the Villa Ballester, Argentina from the Blancan to Irvingtonian of Guanajuato (Mones, 1991), and H. gaylordi from late Pliocene (Carranza-Castañeda and Miller, 1988), and N. to early Pleistocene of Grenadines Bank, island occidentalis from Irvingtonian of Jalisco and Sonora of Grenada, Lesser Antilles island-arc (MacPhee (Carranza-Castañeda et al., 1981; Shaw, 1981; et al., 2000). Shaw and McDonald, 1987; Carranza-Castañeda, Neochoerus is an extinct genus closely related to 2016). In addition, specimens referred to Hydro- Hydrochoerus (Vucetich et al., 2014), with a fossil choerus from the late Pleistocene of Media Luna record throughout the late Pliocene to the late lagoon, San Luis Potosí; Térapa, Sonora; Chapala Pleistocene of North and South America (Mones, lake, Jalisco; and Valsequillo, Puebla (Hernán- 1991). Neochoerus was erected by Hay (1926) for the dez-Junquera, 1977; Pichardo, 1997; Mead et al., species Hydrochoerus pinckneyi, which he described 2006; Carranza-Castañeda, 2016), and indetermi- based on a single M3 (third upper molar) from the nate hydrochoerids from Los Tanques, Zacatecas Pleistocene of South Carolina (Hay, 1923). (Lozano-Ramos et al., 2006) have been reported. Currently, six species are recognized: (i) Neo- The fossil record of capybaras in Mexico is poorly choerus occidentalis from Blancan-Irvingtonian (late known. Therefore, the aim of this work is to for- Pliocene–early Pleistocene) of Sonora and Jalisco mally describe the capybaras specimens recovered (Carranza-Castañeda, 2016); (ii) N. cordobai from from Chiapas state, adding the first locality with Blancan III (early Pliocene) of Guanajuato (Car- these rodents in south-southeastern Mexico. We ranza-Castañeda, 2016), referred as Phugatherium also comment on the taxonomic identity of the dichroplax by Vucetich et al. (2015); (iii) N. tarijensis late Pleistocene capybara specimens from other from Ensenadian (middle Pleistocene) of Tarija, localities in Mexico. in the late Pleistocene of Chiapas Neochoerus Artícle A021019 http://dx.doi.org/10.18268/BSGM2020v72n1a021019 Boletín de la Sociedad Geológica Mexicana / 72 (1) / 2020 / 3 STUDY AREA / MATERIALS AND METHODS Figure 1 Location (A), and stratigraphic section (B) of the Los Mangos, Villaflores, Chiapas, Mexico. 2. Study area floridanum remains have been collected. The next layer is composed of sandy silt and fine sand, 1 The material described in this work was collected m thick. The upper part of the sequence consists from the Los Mangos locality, near downtown Vil- of soil with organic matter. The presence of Bison laflores, at 16°14ʹ25ʺN and 93°13ʹ28ʺW (Figure sp. is indicative of the Rancholabrean NALMA 1A). A sequence of 4 m thick lacustrine sediments (North American Land Mammal Ages biochro- crops out there (Figure 1B). The base of the sec- nology, late Pleistocene) for the bearing deposits