How Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS3) is reflected in northern Mesopotamia faunal assemblage of Argentina: The Xenarthra Cingulata case

Using Paleoclimate and the Fossil Record to Explain Past and Present Distributions of Armadillos (Xenarthra, Dasypodidae)

“…Following Carlini and Scillato-Yané (1999), it has been recorded since the Ensenadan Age (early Pleistocene) based on some specimens with dubious geographic and/or stratigraphic provenance (e.g., MLP 69-VIII-9-5). For this reason, its biochron has been restricted to the late Pleistocene of Brazil (Soibelzon et al 2015) and Argentina (Francia et al 2015;Gasparini et al 2016) to Recent. Finally, eutatines, which are recorded since the late Eocene of Patagonia, are most hairy armadillos, probably in connection with the adaptation to colder climates (Krmpotic et al 2009a;Scillato-Yané et al 2010).…”

“…In order to analyze the distribution of Dasypodidae during the Quaternary (last 2.6 Ma, Pleistocene and Holocene epochs sensu Cohen et al 2013), distributional maps were created based on specimens housed in the following paleontological, archaeological, and mastozoological collections: 1-Argentina: Museo de La Plata (La Plata); Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales BBernardino Rivadavia^(Buenos Aires); Museo Municipal de Ciencias Naturales de Mar del Plata BLorenzo Scaglia^(Mar del Plata); 2-Brazil: Coleção de Mamíferos Fósseis do Laboratório de Mastozoologia (Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro); Museu Nacional (Rio de Janeiro); Museu de Ciências Naturais (Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais); 3-USA: American Museum of Natural History (New York); Florida Museum of Natural History (Gainesville); Princeton Collection of Yale Peabody Museum (New Haven); 4-Bolivia: Museo Nacional Paleontológico-Arqueológico de Tarija (Tarija). The database was supplemented with information from FAUNMAP (Graham and Lundelius, 2010), published fossil records in paleontological and archaeological contexts (e.g., Vizcaíno et al 1995;Soibelzon et al 2006Soibelzon et al , 2010Soibelzon et al , 2013Soibelzon et al , 2015Soibelzon and León 2017;Loponte and Acosta 2012;Rodriguez-Bualó et al 2014;Castro 2015;Francia et al 2015;Ciancio 2016), and new records from recent field investigations in Buenos Aires Province, Argentina (e.g., southern coastal cliffs, San Pedro and Marcos Paz counties). The datasets analyzed during the current study are available in the repository mentioned above and are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.…”

The paleoecology of Pleistocene giant megatheriid sloths: stable isotopes (δ13C, δ18O) of co-occurring Megatherium and Eremotherium from southern Brazil

“…The biogeographic corridor developed along the fluvial systems of the Paraná-Paraguay basins (Oakley et al, 2005) served for the migration of tropical taxa to subtropical areas and vice-versa, as exemplified by the presence of Brazilian (tropical) fauna in the Mesopotamian region of northeastern Argentina (Scillato-Yané et al, 2005;Francia et al, 2015). The giant sloth Lestodon armatus found in the western state of São Paulo (Figure 8B) (Paula Couto, 1973) probably followed this route to migrate from the Pampas to the north, possibly originating the species Ocnotherium giganteum found in the State of Minas Gerais (Cartelle, 2012).…”

“…Considering the co-occurrence of Brazilian and Pampean fossils in the Chuí Creek local fauna (Lopes et al, 2021), this Atlantic corridor allowed other elements of the intertropical megafauna such as the canid Protocyon troglodytes (Oliveira et al, 2005) and the glyptodont Panochthus greslebini (Ferreira et al, 2015) to reach the CPRS, following southward expansion of tropical environments during warm (interglacial/ interstadial) stages. On the other hand, some Pampean taxa found in the CPRS such as Megatherium and the glyptodont Doedicurus clavicaudatus (Pereira et al, 2012), which is absent in northeastern Argentina (Francia et al, 2015), may have also migrated northward along this route, possibly during glacial epochs, when sea-levels lower than the present one exposed most of the continental shelf, as indicated by the abundance of mammalian fossils on the inner shelf off Rio Grande do Sul (Lopes & Buchmann, 2010;Aires & Lopes, 2012;Lopes & Pereira, 2019). The Megatherium found in Pessegueiro Creek probably migrated across the Pampa plains from Argentina or Uruguay.…”

First record of the Neolicaphrium recens Frenguelli, 1921 (Mammalia, Litopterna) in the Pleistocene of Santiago del Estero Province, Argentina

“…In Argentina, N. recens is recorded in Córdoba Province (middle-late Pleistocene; see Frenguelli, 1921;Tauber, 2000), Corrientes Province (Toropí/ Yupoí Formation; late Pleistocene, see Tonni, 2004;Tonni et al, 2005;Francia et al, 2012;Francia, 2014;Francia et al, 2015), and Santa Fe Province (Tezanos Pinto Formation; late Pleistocene-early Holocene; see Vezzosi et al, 2009). In Brazil there are records in Rio Grande do Sul (late Pleistocene; Scherer et al, 2009), and in Uruguay it is recorded in Salto and Tacuarembó departments (Sopas Formation; late Pleistocene; see Bond et al, 2001;Ubilla et al, 2011) (Figure 1).…”