Where: Venezuela (11.5° N, 69.5° W: paleocoordinates 11.2° N, 67.9° W)
• coordinate stated in text
• small collection-level geographic resolution
When: El Muaco Member (Caujarao Formation), Tortonian (11.6 - 7.2 Ma)
• Kavanagh de Petzall (1959) divided the Caujarao Formation into three members: El Muaco (lower), Mataruca (middle) and Taratara (upper), where the latter one is underlying La Vela Formation (Miocene–Pliocene). The fossiliferous localities here studied belong to the El Muaco Member (Fig. 2), which is 690 m thick and with a lithology characterized mainly by mudstones and clays with some limestones and sandstones well developed at the basal section of the member (Kavanagh de Petzall 1959; Vallenilla 1961).
Environment/lithology: estuary or bay; gray mudstone
Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils
Collection methods: surface (in situ), mechanical, ,
• The specimens were extracted from the sediment/rocks mechanically, and these are housed in the paleontological collection of the Museo Angel Segundo Lopez, Taratara, Falcon State, Venezuela, with the acronym MTT-V.
Primary reference: J. D. Carrillo-Briceño, A. E. Reyes-Cespedes, R. Salas-Gismondi and R. Sanchez. 2018. A new vertebrate continental assemblage from the Tortonian of Venezuela. Swiss Journal of Palaeontology 1-12 [E. Vlachos/E. Vlachos/G. Varnham]more details
Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis
PaleoDB collection 200110: authorized by Evangelos Vlachos, entered by Evangelos Vlachos on 14.03.2019
Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)
Taxonomic list
unclassified | |
Chondrichthyes | |
Aetomylaeus sp. Garman 1908 eagle ray | |
Dasyatidae indet. Jordan 1888 whiptail stingray | |
Anotodus sp. Le Hon 1871 elasmobranch | |
Negaprion sp. Whitley 1940 lemon shark
Carcharhinus leucas Valenciennes 1839 requiem shark | |
Hemipristis serra Agassiz 1835 ground shark | |
Sphyrna mokarran hammerhead shark | |
Galeocerdo aduncus Agassiz 1835 tiger shark | |
"Carcharocles megalodon" = Otodus megalodon
"Carcharocles megalodon" = Otodus megalodon Agassiz 1835 megalodon | |
Mammalia | |
Scirrotherium sp. Edmund and Theodor 1997 edentate | |
Reptilia | |
Chelus sp. Duméril 1806 sideneck turtle One of the fragments (MTT-V-80, Fig. 3r) corresponds to a carapace fragment preserving the posterior costals 6–8, while the other fragment (MTT-V-80A, Fig. 3s) corresponds to the posterior plastral lobe (xiphiplastra), where portions (most posterior regions) of both hypoplastra are preserved too
| |
Gavialidae indet. crocodilian | |
Actinopteri | |
Balistes sp. Linnaeus 1758 | |
Lutjanidae indet. Gill 1861 | |
Serrasalmidae indet. Günther 1864 | |
Pimelodidae indet. Eigenmann and Eigenmann 1918 catfish | |
Sphyraena sp. Artedi 1793 barracuda |