A new vertebrate fauna from the Triassic of the Deccan, India

Abstract

Recent work on the Upper Gondwana Maleri Formation has enabled a more accurate and extended faunal list to be given, consisting of various kinds of fishes (dipnoans, subholostean, pleuracanth), reptiles (especially rhynchosaur, phytosaur, and aetosaurid), and a metoposaurid amphibian. A better estimate can thus be made of the age of the Maleri Formation as Upper Triassic, equivalent to the Carnian–Middle Norian Zones (inclusive) of the standard marine Triassic sequence. An Upper Gondwana inlier south-southeast of the main Maleri outcrop contains fossiliferous Maleri red clays and also a second red clay belt with a different vertebrate fauna, the Yerrapalli fauna, consisting of reptiles (including a large dicynodont and probably a theriodont and an erythrosuchoid) and amphibians, one of which may be a very large capitosaur. The new fauna seems similar in age to that of the South African Cynognathus Zone, i.e. late Lower Triassic. A fauna of this age has not previously been found in the continental Gondwana rocks of India, and if the preliminary results are confirmed it will be necessary to recognize a separate Yerrapalli Formation within the Gondwana sequence.

Palaeodiet of Miocene Producers and Depositional Environments: Inferences from the First Evidence of Microcoprolites from India

“…Sohn and Chatterjee (1979) reported large coprolites (as compared to the ones reported earlier by Matley in 1939a) from the sedimentary succession of the Maleri Formation exposed close to the village of Achlapur (near Maleri), Adilabad District, Telangana State, south India. Sohn and Chatterjee (1979) attributed the Achlapur coprolites as resulting from the shell-eating large rhynchosaurian reptile Paradapedon huxleyi, due to the common occurrence of bones of this animal in the Maleri sediments (Jain et al, 1964). Considering that Matley (1939b) did not observe any biogenic material within the coprolites, Sohn and Chatterjee"s (1979) work gained significance as it recorded the presence of an ostracod (assigned to the genus Darwinula) for the first time within a coprolite from India.…”

Gondwana Vertebrate Faunas of India: Their Diversity and Intercontinental Relationships

“…The Yerrapalli Formation of the P-G Basin and the Denwa Formation of the Satpura Basin (Figs 1B-C, 2A) are the major Middle Triassic vertebrate-bearing horizons of India (Crookshank, 1936;Jain et al, 1964), though fragmentary remains of a dicynodont and temnospondyl are known from the Bhimaram Formation (Kutty et al, 1987). The strata of the Yerrapalli Formation comprise red to violet mudstone alternating with quartzose sandstone, with mudstone being fossil-rich.…”

“…The other horizons are the Omingonde Formation of Namibia (Keyser, 1973;Pickford, 1995;Abdala and Smith, 2009), the N'tawere Formation of Zambia (Catuneanu et al, 2005;Rubidge, 2015), the Arcadia Formation, and the Hawkesbury and Wianamatta formations of Australia (Banks, 1978;Warren, 2012). Jain et al (1964) considered the age of Yerrapalli Formation as late Early Triassic or possibly early Middle Triassic. Later, with the recovery of the kannemeyeriid dicynodont (Roy Chowdhury, 1970;Bandyopadhyay, 1988a), and the stenaulorhynchine rhynchosaur (Chatterjee 1980), the formation was correlated with the Manda Formation of Tanzania, N'tawere Formation of Zambia, the Donguz Series of Russia, and the Omingonde Formation of Namibia, and an Anisian age for the Yerrapalli Formation was suggested by Bandyopadhyay (1988b) and Sengupta (1999, 2006).…”

A new hybodont shark (Chondrichthyes, Elasmobranchii) from the Upper Triassic Tiki Formation of India with remarks on its dental histology and biostratigraphy

“…1.1, inset) are rich in varied vertebrate fossil assemblages (Bandyopadhyay, 1999, 2011), including vertebrate microfossils (e.g., Datta et al, 1978; Datta, 1981, 2005; Yadagiri, 1986; Prasad and Sahni, 1987; Prasad and Cappetta, 1993; Patnaik, 2003). Studies on fossil fish teeth collected from the Gondwana sediments of India are scarce and was initiated by Jain et al (1964), who reported an undescribed dipnoan, subholostean, and pleuracanth fishes from the Upper Triassic Maleri Formation of the Pranhita-Godavari (PG) Basin. Later, Jain (1980) described Xenacanthus indicus from the same formation.…”