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Fossil Cetaceans (Mammalia, Cetacea) from the Neogene of Colombia and Venezuela

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Abstract

There are significant geographic gaps in our knowledge of marine mammal evolution because most fossils have been found and described from Northern Hemisphere localities and a few other high-latitude areas in the Southern Hemisphere. Here, we describe fossil cetacean remains from five geological units in the South American tropics (Urumaco, Codore, Castilletes, Cantaure, and Querales formations) generally representing marginal marine depositional environments (estuaries, deltas, and tidal flats). While fossil cetaceans from Venezuelan Neogene localities have been previously studied, this paper includes the first descriptions of fossil cetaceans from Colombia, including a diverse assemblage of mysticetes and odontocetes. We identified and provisionally referred fragmentary remains to the iniid Ischyrorhynchus vanbenedeni and to the platanistid Zarhachis flagellator. The latter suggests the presence of Platanistidae in the eastern coast of South America during the early-middle Miocene, representing the second record of Platanistidae in South America and the first record of Platanistidae in eastern South America. Other less-diagnostic specimens are characterized by features commonly seen in longirostrine odontocetes such as Iniidae, Platanistidae, Pontoporiidae, Lipotidae, Eoplatanistidae, and Squalodelphinidae.

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Acknowledgements

This work greatly benefited from the suggestions of the reviewers (Giovanni Bianucci and Olivier Lambert) and the editors (François Pujos, Pierre-Olivier Antoine, and John Wible). We thank Carlos Jaramillo (STRI), Analía Forasiepi (CCT-CONICET-Mendoza), and Yoshihiro Tanaka (Numata Fossil Museum) for reading through and commenting on earlier versions of this manuscript. Juan David Carrillo (University of Zurich), Mary Parra and Fredy Parra (CIP) are thanked for fossil preparation. Loïc Costeur (NMB), Mary Parra (STRI), and Jaime Escobar (Universidad del Norte) kindly provided access to specimens under their care. Thanks to Andrés Reyes Cespedes (Universidad Experimental Francisco de Miranda) for help in collections. Thanks to Michael Knappertbusch (NMB) for guidance with micropaleontological analysis and access to laboratory and equipment. Austin Hendy (LACM) and Gustavo Ballen (STRI) kindly provided contextual information regarding the fieldwork in which the MUN-STRI specimens were collected. Juan David Carrillo, Ashley Latimer, and Torsten Scheyer (University of Zurich) are thanked for useful discussions; Juan David Carrillo provided measurements of AMU-CURS-219. GAF wishes to thank Jairo Carrillo (Colombia)and his family for their hospitality and logistical aid. Thanks to Scott Hartman for producing the silhouette used in Fig. 1 and PhyloPic for making it available.

We thank the Instituto del Patrimonio Cultural de Venezuela and the Alcaldía Bolivariana de Urumaco, for the authorization and permissions to collect and study the fossil material from Venezuela. The Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Society, Universidad del Norte, the Anders Foundation, Gregory D. and Jennifer Walston Johnson, and the National Science Foundation (grant EAR 0957679) helped to support fieldwork. Thanks to Carlos Rosero for managing all the logistics in the field in Colombia, Liliana Londoño and Maria Ines Barreto for administrative and logistic support. Thanks to the Wayuú Community for allowing access to their lands and for support during fieldwork, the Colombian National Police (Castilletes base), and all the members of the field teams over the past four years.

This project was funded by Swiss National Science Foundation grant 31003A_149605 to MRS-V. GAF was supported by Fonds für Lehre und Forschung from the Naturhistorisches Museum Basel. EA was supported by a Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute postdoctoral fellowship grant.

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Correspondence to Gabriel Aguirre-Fernández.

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The Online Resource 1 includes unlabeled specimen photographs. Additional field data linked to MUN-STRI specimens can be downloaded from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Geological Sample Database webpage (http://biogeodb.stri.si.edu/jaramillo/fossildb/index.php/) using either the locality (e.g., “490006”) or the sample (e.g., “37698”) numbers. (PDF 1656 kb)

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Aguirre-Fernández, G., Carrillo-Briceño, J.D., Sánchez, R. et al. Fossil Cetaceans (Mammalia, Cetacea) from the Neogene of Colombia and Venezuela. J Mammal Evol 24, 71–90 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-016-9353-x

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