TY - JOUR
T1 - Middle Miocene carnivorans from the Monarch Mill Formation, Nevada
AU - Smith, Kent
AU - Czaplewski, Nicholas
AU - Cifelli, Richard L.
N1 - Funding Information:
Fieldwork was aided by John H. Hutchison and the late Donald E. Savage (both UCMP); James Banta (University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA); and Patrick Ballard, Nathan Claver, Linden Cowley, Steven Dyer, Jessica Fisher, Kelly Fitzpatrick, Erin Kratz, Kayci Lewis, and Ryan Sullivan (all Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA). For curatorial assistance, we thank Jennifer Larsen (OMNH) and Kyle Davies (OMNH). We also thank other members of field parties who collected the UCMP specimens we borrowed and studied. For the loan of UCMP specimens, we thank Donald E. Savage, Patricia A. Holroyd, John H. Hutchinson, and Jere H. Lipps (all UCMP). KSS thanks Patty Smith (Tulsa Community College, Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA) for her continued support of his research efforts. We thank Lotsee Patterson (University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma, USA) for providing a vehicle for the field portions of this project. For providing permits to collect on Bureau of Land Management properties, we extend our gratitude to Thom Burke and Bryan Hockett (United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management at the State Office in Reno, Nevada, USA), and Kristin Bowen and Patricia Mecham (Carson City District Office in Carson City, Nevada, USA). We extend our thanks to Curator of Anthropology Gene Hattori and Director James Barmore (Nevada State Museum in Carson City, Nevada, USA) for providing us with an Antiquities Permit for the State of Nevada. We extend a special thank you to Jon A. Baskin (Texas A & M University, Kingsville, Texas, USA) for suggestions in identifying one of our specimens. Xiaoming Wang (LACM) kindly provided digital photographs and scans of the holotype of Actiocyon leardi. Garrett Stowe (OMNH) printed and painted replicas from 3-D scans. Steve Westrop (OMNH) allowed us to use his photographic equipment and software; Roger Burkhalter and Kate Arndt (both OMNH) aided in taking photographs of specimens. We extend a special thank you to John Orcutt (University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, USA) and Barry Albright (University of North Florida, Jacksonville, Florida, USA) for thoughtful reviews, which improved an earlier version of this paper. The following provided funding to KSS for this project: Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences; University of Oklahoma Department of Zoology; Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education Doctoral Study Grant; Southern Regional Education Board Doctoral Scholars Program Dissertation Year Fellowship; the American Indian Graduate Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico; the Lt. William Johnson Scott Memorial Scholarship; and OMNH for curatorial support of the specimens from Eastgate. NJC received logistical support for fieldwork from Cheryl and Jessica Czaplewski and from the Director of the OMNH.
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2016 K. Smith et al.
PY - 2016/3/1
Y1 - 2016/3/1
N2 - The lowest part of the Monarch Mill Formation in the Middlegate basin, west-central Nevada, has yielded a middle Miocene (Barstovian Land Mammal Age) vertebrate assemblage, the Eastgate local fauna. Paleobotanical evidence from nearby, nearly contemporaneous fossil leaf assemblages indicates that the Middle Miocene vegetation in the area was mixed coniferous and hardwood forest and chaparral-sclerophyllous shrubland, and suggests that the area had been uplifted to 2700-2800 m paleoaltitude before dropping later to near its present elevation of 1600 m. Thus, the local fauna provides a rare glimpse at a medium- to high-altitude vertebrate community in the intermountain western interior of North America. The local fauna includes the remains of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and 25 families of mammals. Carnivorans, the focus of this study, include six taxa (three of which are new) belonging to four families. Canidae are represented by the borophagine Tomarctus brevirostris and the canine Leptocyon sp. indet. The earliest record and second North American occurrence of the simocyonine ailurid Actiocyon is represented by A. parverratis sp. nov. Two new mustelids, Brevimalictis chikasha gen. et sp. nov. and Negodiaetictis rugatrulleum gen. et sp. nov., may represent Galictinae but are of uncertain subfamilial and tribal affinity. The fourth family is represented by the felid Pseudaelurus sp. indet. Tomarctus brevirostris is limited biochronologically to the Barstovian land mammal age and thus is consistent with the age indicated by other members of the Eastgate local fauna as well as by indirect tephrochronological dates previously associated with the Monarch Mill Formation. Actiocyon parverratis sp. nov. extends the temporal range of the genus Actiocyon from late Clarendonian back to the Barstovian. The Eastgate local fauna improves our understanding of mammalian successions and evolution, during and subsequent to the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum (∼14-17 Ma).
AB - The lowest part of the Monarch Mill Formation in the Middlegate basin, west-central Nevada, has yielded a middle Miocene (Barstovian Land Mammal Age) vertebrate assemblage, the Eastgate local fauna. Paleobotanical evidence from nearby, nearly contemporaneous fossil leaf assemblages indicates that the Middle Miocene vegetation in the area was mixed coniferous and hardwood forest and chaparral-sclerophyllous shrubland, and suggests that the area had been uplifted to 2700-2800 m paleoaltitude before dropping later to near its present elevation of 1600 m. Thus, the local fauna provides a rare glimpse at a medium- to high-altitude vertebrate community in the intermountain western interior of North America. The local fauna includes the remains of fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and 25 families of mammals. Carnivorans, the focus of this study, include six taxa (three of which are new) belonging to four families. Canidae are represented by the borophagine Tomarctus brevirostris and the canine Leptocyon sp. indet. The earliest record and second North American occurrence of the simocyonine ailurid Actiocyon is represented by A. parverratis sp. nov. Two new mustelids, Brevimalictis chikasha gen. et sp. nov. and Negodiaetictis rugatrulleum gen. et sp. nov., may represent Galictinae but are of uncertain subfamilial and tribal affinity. The fourth family is represented by the felid Pseudaelurus sp. indet. Tomarctus brevirostris is limited biochronologically to the Barstovian land mammal age and thus is consistent with the age indicated by other members of the Eastgate local fauna as well as by indirect tephrochronological dates previously associated with the Monarch Mill Formation. Actiocyon parverratis sp. nov. extends the temporal range of the genus Actiocyon from late Clarendonian back to the Barstovian. The Eastgate local fauna improves our understanding of mammalian successions and evolution, during and subsequent to the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum (∼14-17 Ma).
KW - Ailuridae
KW - Barstovian
KW - Canidae
KW - Felidae
KW - Mammalia
KW - Miocene
KW - Mustelidae
KW - Nevada
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84959341205&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.4202/app.00111.2014
DO - 10.4202/app.00111.2014
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84959341205
SN - 0567-7920
VL - 61
SP - 231
EP - 252
JO - Acta Palaeontologica Polonica
JF - Acta Palaeontologica Polonica
IS - 1
ER -