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A new window to the fossil herpetofauna of India: amphibians and snakes from the Miocene localities of Kutch (Gujarat)

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Abstract

The Miocene beds of Kutch in India are well known for their mammalian assemblages including an extinct ape Sivapithecus. We here report new amphibian and snake fossils, which have been recovered from two stratigraphic levels: the older Palasava locality which is dated to the middle Miocene (~ 14 Ma), whereas the sediments of younger sites at Tappar and Pasuda representing the late Miocene (~ 11–10 Ma). The amphibian material consists only of Rana sp., Ranidae indet. and Anura indet. The snake material is much more diverse and can be allocated to several taxa: Python sp., Acrochordus dehmi, Acrochordus sp., Ahaetuliinae indet. and Alethinophidia indet. Among all these finds, the fossils of Rana sp., Ahaetuliinae indet. and Python sp. described here form the first evidence of these taxa from the Neogene of India. The ectothermic faunas are good indicators of palaeoenvironmental conditions. The ectothermic vertebrate assemblages of these Indian localities indicate a very warm, humid/wet, tropical to sub-tropical environmental conditions during the middle and late Miocene.

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Acknowledgements

RP, NPS and DC thank SERB, New Delhi, for funding the research in Kutch, Gujarat. NPS and RKS thank the Director, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, for the research facilities (contribution no. WIHG/0146). MKS thanks Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, for the Research Seed Money Grant. NAS also thanks UGC for JRF. We thank Georgios L. Georgalis (Palaeontological Institute and Museum, University of Zurich), Andrea Villa (Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie, München, Germany) and Jason Head (Zoology University of Cambridge, UK) who greatly improved the paper by reviewing the manuscript and their useful comments. The authors are highly thankful to Prof. M. Thakkar (Dept. of Earth Science, K.S.K.V. Kachchh University, Bhuj) for his help during the field work.

Funding

This work was supported by SERB (HRR/2018/000063), Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, for the Research Seed Money Grant (ref. no.: CUPB/CC/16/00/13) and WIHG (CAP Himalaya Project-Acitivity 3).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, 160014, India

    Ningthoujam Premjit Singh, Rajeev Patnaik & Deepak Choudhary

  2. Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, 248001, India

    Ningthoujam Premjit Singh & Ramesh Kumar Sehgal

  3. Laboratory of Evolutionary Biology, Department of Ecology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University in Bratislava, Mlynská dolina, Ilkovičova 6, 842 15, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Andrej Čerňanský

  4. Department of Geology, Central University of Punjab, Bathinda, 151401, India

    K Milankumar Sharma & Nongmaithem Amardas Singh

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  1. Ningthoujam Premjit Singh
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Singh, N.P., Patnaik, R., Čerňanský, A. et al. A new window to the fossil herpetofauna of India: amphibians and snakes from the Miocene localities of Kutch (Gujarat). Palaeobio Palaeoenv 102, 419–435 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12549-021-00515-x

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