Direct evidence of megamammal-carnivore interaction decoded from bone marks in historical fossil collections from the Pampean region

PeerJ
Karina Vanesa ChichkoyanBienvenido Martínez-Navarro

Abstract

Pleistocene South American megafauna has traditionally attracted the interest of scientists and the popular media alike. However, ecological interactions between the species that inhabited these ecosystems, such as predator-prey relationships or interspecific competition, are poorly known. To this regard, carnivore marks imprinted on the fossil bones of megamammal remains are very useful for deciphering biological activity and, hence, potential interspecific relationships among taxa. In this article, we study historical fossil collections housed in different European and Argentinean museums that were excavated during the 19th and early 20th centuries in the Pampean region, Argentina, in order to detect carnivore marks on bones of megamammals and provide crucial information on the ecological relationships between South American taxa during the Pleistocene. Our results indicate that the long bones of megafauna from the Pampean region (e.g., the Mylodontidae and Toxodontidae families) exhibit carnivore marks. Furthermore, long bones of medium-sized species and indeterminate bones also present punctures, pits, scores and fractures. Members of the large-carnivore guild, such as ursids, canids and even felids, are recognised as the m...Continue Reading

References

Oct 20, 2005·Journal of Morphology·Per Christiansen, John M Harris
May 8, 2007·Ecology·Per Christiansen, Stephen Wroe
Oct 28, 2015·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Blaire Van ValkenburghV Louise Roth
Sep 30, 2016·PloS One·Gustavo G PolitisAdriana Blasi

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Citations

Mar 7, 2019·Royal Society Open Science·Christopher WolfWilliam J Ripple

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