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Chadronian “Insectivores” of the Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan

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Chadronian “Insectivores” of the Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan Chadronian “Insectivores” of the Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan A thesis submitted to the College of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in the Department of Geological Sciences University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon by Taran Meyer © Taran Meyer, August 2007. All rights reserved ii Permission to Use In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a Master’s degree from the University of Saskatchewan, I agree that the libraries of the University of Saskatchewan may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this thesis in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professors who supervised my thesis work or, in their absence, by the Head of the Department of Geological Sciences or the Dean of the College of Graduate Studies and Research. It is understood that any copying or publications or use of this thesis or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of Saskatchewan in any scholarly use which may be made of any materials in my thesis. Requests for permission to copy or to make other use of material in this thesis in whole or part should be addressed to: Head of the Department of Geological Sciences 114 Science Place University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5E2 iii Acknowledgments The greatest thanks go out to my supervisor, Dr. Harold N. Bryant, who introduced me to little teeth in the dirt and the stories they can tell. For financial support I thank NSERC, the University of Saskatchewan, and the Government of Saskatchewan . I would like to thank the Royal Saskatchewan Museum and Royal Ontario Museum for use of their collections from the Cypress Hills, and also the American Museum of Natural History, the Carnegie Museum, the Field Museum, and the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian) for the invaluable loan of comparative materials. Thank you, Dr. Ernie Walker, for the use of your lab and camera for my photography; thanks also to the rest of my committee. Thanks also go out to Frank McDougall, for sharing your thoughts, ideas, and diagrams regarding the Horse Locality and to Dr. Allen Kihm for your information concerning the Medicine Pole Local Fauna and also for valuable discussion. I would also like to thank the Geological Sciences secretaries, Jane Ritz and Brenda Britton, for all their help in too many areas to count. On a personal level, I wish to thank all my friends and relatives who have been there, offering support (and childcare!) when the crunches came. Most especially my husband, Robin; this would have been impossible without you. Also my sister-in-law, Danielle Peters, and my neighbour Cathy Coutu, for stepping in to help look after my children in this last busy stretch. iv Abstract The Cypress Hills Formation of Saskatchewan preserves sediments of Uintan (middle Eocene) to Hemingfordian (middle Miocene) age, but the best-represented period is the Chadronian North American Land Mammal Age. The best-known site, with the richest biodiversity known for the area, is the middle Chadronian Calf Creek Locality, from which over 70 mammal and 25 non-mammal species are known. The majority of these taxa have been described in the literature, but the portion of the fauna which includes the "insectivores," members of the orders Leptictida, Apatotheria, and Lipotyphla, have not been formally described. The following thesis identifies and describes the insectivores and chiropterans of the Calf Creek Locality, together with the same groups from the nearby Chadronian-aged Horse Locality. The inclusion of the Horse Locality specimens serves three purposes: (1) to begin the formal description of material from the Horse Locality, (2) to compare the two faunas to identify possible differences between the two, and (3) to allow for analysis of the implications of any faunal differences in terms of age and environment of the two sites. The insectivore faunas of the two sites are found to be very similar, with the same genera and common species occurring at both localities. Six species-level differences are reported, all within relatively rare taxa; in most cases rare taxa were found at the Calf Creek but not at the Horse Locality. It seems likely that most of the specific differences result from the smaller collection size of the Horse Locality rather than from age-related species turnover. Although the non-insectivore taxa suggest that the Horse Locality dates from either later in the middle Chadronian or the Late Chadronian, an evolutionary change between the Calf Creek and the Horse localities could not be confirmed in the groups studied here. v Chadronian “Insectivores” of the Cypress Hills, Saskatchewan Table of Contents Permission to use.......................................................................................................................ii Acknowledgments....................................................................................................................iii Abstract.....................................................................................................................................iv Table of Contents.......................................................................................................................v List of Tables...........................................................................................................................vii List of Figures.........................................................................................................................viii List of Plates.............................................................................................................................ix Acronyms..................................................................................................................................ix Chapter 1 Introduction.......................................................................................................1 Chapter 2 The Cypress Hills Region..................................................................................4 i. Geology..................................................................................................4 ii. History of Study.....................................................................................8 iii. Age of the Formation.............................................................................9 Chapter 3 The Current Project..........................................................................................12 i. Sites Under Study: Calf Creek Locality...............................................12 ii. Sites Under Study: Horse Locality.......................................................16 iii. Justification for Comparison................................................................20 iv. Goals of this Project.............................................................................21 iv. Materials and Methods.........................................................................21 Chapter 4 What is an insectivore?....................................................................................24 i. Insectivore morphology ......................................................................25 ii. Insectivore phylogeny .........................................................................27 iii. Conclusions .........................................................................................37 Chapter 5 Systematic Palaeontology................................................................................40 i. Chadronian Insectivores of the Cypress Hills......................................40 ii. Lipotyphla............................................................................................44 1) Apternodontidae ..........................................................44 Apternodus sp. indet. cf. A. baladontus ......................47 2) Geolabididae................................................................53 Centetodon chadronensis ............................................52 3) Soricidae .....................................................................60 Domnina thompsoni.....................................................61 4) Micropternodontidae....................................................66 Micropternodus strophensis ........................................67 Micropternodus cf. M. montrosensis...........................76 5)Cryptoryctes.................................................................80 Cryptoryctes kayi ........................................................80 6) Oligoryctidae................................................................86 Oligoryctes altitalonidus .............................................87 vi iii. Apatotheria—Apatemyidae..................................................................93 Sinclairella dakotensis ............................................................93 Apatemys .................................................................................97 iv. Leptictida—Leptictidae .....................................................................102 Leptictis acutidens ................................................................103 Leptictis wilsoni ....................................................................108 Leptictis thomsoni .................................................................111
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