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Size Variation Amongst the Non-volant Mammals from the Early Eocene Cambay Shale Deposits of Western India: Paleobiogeographic implications

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Biological Consequences of Plate Tectonics

Part of the book series: Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology ((VERT))

Abstract

Within the Indian subcontinent, the oldest Cenozoic record of non-volant mammals comprises various groups including perissodactyls, artiodactyls, primates, lagomorphs, tillodonts, proteutherians, rodents and didelphimorphs. These mammals have been reported from the subsurface horizons of the Cambay Shale which are dated at ~54.5 Ma (Early Eocene). A statistical analysis (at the ordinal level) of size variation(s) in the lower dentitions of these taxa from the Cambay Shale allows their size categorization into three broad groups: small, medium and large. Based on the data on (a) phylogenetic relationships of large perissodactyls (e.g., cambaytheres), (b) an Early Eocene age of the fauna, (c) the timing of collision between the Indian plate and Eurasia, and (d) considering that it was unlikely for the large-sized component (perissodactyls) to disperse across oceanic barriers, the potential presence of a short-lived corridor for dispersal between Indian subcontinent and Eurasia prior to ~54.5 Ma cannot be ruled out. Further, the overall data hint at the presence of cambaythere-like mammals during the late Paleocene of the Indian and/or Eurasian continent(s), emphasizing the need for rigorous reconnoitering for Paleocene mammals (presently unknown) within the Indian subcontinent.

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Acknowledgements

At the onset, I would like to thank Prof. G.V.R. Prasad and Prof. Rajeev Patnaik for the invitation to contribute to this volume. I would also like to acknowledge the Director (Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences, India) for constant encouragement and providing permission to contribute this research article. The author acknowledges funding support from BSIP in the form of in-house projects 2.17 (2017–2019) and 3.9 (2019–2021). Dr. Sebastian Klaus (Goethe Universität, Germany), Prof. M. P. Singh (University of Lucknow , India), Prof. Christopher R. Scotese (Director, PEOMAP Project, Illinois, USA) and Dr. (Mrs) Rajni Tewari (BSIP, Lucknow, India) kindly provided permission(s) to reproduce, reuse and redraw figure(s) for this article. I would also like to thank Prof. Daryl Paul Domning (Howard University, Washington DC, USA) for valuable discussions on the manuscript and also for providing grammatical enhancements. Prof. I.B. Singh (Lucknow , India) and Dr. Rahul Garg (Lucknow, India) are also acknowledged for insightful discussions. I also thank staff members of the Gujarat Industries Power Company Limited (GIPCL) and Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation (GMDC) for providing necessary permission(s) and extending logistic support during numerous field excursions and help in many other ways. I gratefully acknowledge Dr. David Krause (Denver Museum of Nature and Science, Colorado, USA) and two anonymous reviewers for a critical review of the manuscript and for their constructive and insightful comments which helped me in improving the quality of the manuscript.

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  1. Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences, 53, University Road, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, 226007, India

    Vivesh V. Kapur

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    Guntupalli V.R. Prasad

  2. Center of Advanced Study in Geology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India

    Rajeev Patnaik

Appendix

Appendix

Table 5 Data on the area (length × width, in mm sq.) of premolar (p4) and molars (m1, m2, and m3) measurements for known non-volant mammalian orders: Perissodactyla, Artiodactyla, Creodonta, Tillodonta, Primates, Proteutheria, Rodentia, and Didelphimorphia from the Cambay Shale, Gujarat, western India that has been used in the present study for conducting the ANOVA test
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Kapur, V.V. (2020). Size Variation Amongst the Non-volant Mammals from the Early Eocene Cambay Shale Deposits of Western India: Paleobiogeographic implications. In: Prasad, G.V., Patnaik, R. (eds) Biological Consequences of Plate Tectonics. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49753-8_13

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