An Overview of Recent Advances in the Mesozoic–Palaeogene Vertebrate Paleontology in the Context of India’s Northward Drift and Collision with Asia

Abstract

This review article summarizes the recent work done in India on fossil vertebrates from the Mesozoic-early Paleogene interval, with focus on the past five years. Advances made during this period highlight the importance of India's vertebrate fossil record in our understanding of the origin and evolutionary history of several vertebrate groups and the dynamics of intercontinental faunal dispersal and vicariance, especially in the context of India's former position in the Gondwanaland and its subsequent separation from the different Gondwana landmasses as it moved northward to finally collide with Asia in the early Paleogene. These studies have led to a better understanding of the mode of evolution of tetrapods on the drifting Indian plate and provide independent constraints to test the traditional models favouring India's physical isolation from all other landmasses, especially during the late Cretaceous phase of its northward drift. Recent data points to faunal interchanges between India, Africa and Europe at or near the K-Pg boundary and also suggests that the Indian landmass was the centre of origin/early evolution for several orders of modern mammals, including cetaceans (whales), perissodactyls (horses, tapirs) and primates.

The Mesozoic Biogeographic History of Gondwanan Terrestrial Vertebrates: Insights from Madagascar's Fossil Record

“…1-4) were Southern Hemisphere in origin but are now found well north of the equator because they were transported there on the subcontinent's long voyage as a beached Viking funeral ship. These predrift vertebrates are represented in rock units that were deposited before the separation of Pangea into Laurasia and Gondwana and even before the northeast-to-southwest rift that cleaved Gondwana into west and east portions ∼165 Ma (see review in Prasad & Bajpai 2016). The vertebrate fossils from these formations generally represent a Pangean fauna, but the Kota Formation is particularly noteworthy in documenting the most diverse Early Jurassic mammalian assemblage from Gondwana, including possibly the earliest known multituberculate (Parmar et al 2013), as well as Kotasaurus, a basal sauropod dinosaur (Yadagiri 1988).…”

“…The vertebrate fauna during this drifting phase is best represented by the Lameta Formation, the Deccan intertrappean beds, and the Kallamedu Formation, all of late Maastrichtian age. Through concerted effort over the last three decades, this fauna is now diverse and documented in several recent summaries (Prasad & Sahni 2009, Khosla & Verma 2015, Kapur & Khosla 2016, Prasad & Bajpai 2016, Verma et al 2016.…”