Title
The first Tertiary fossils of mammals, turtles, and fish from Canada's Yukon
Title Variants
Alternative:
First Tertiary fossils from Yukon
Related Titles
Series:
American Museum novitates, number 3943
By
Eberle, Jaelyn,
, author
Hutchison, J. Howard (John Howard), 1939-
, author
Kennedy, Kristen,
, author
Koenigswald, Wighart von
, author
MacPhee, R. D. E.
, author
Zazula, Grant D.
, author
Type
Book
Material
Published material
Publication info
New York, NY, American Museum of Natural History, [2019]
Notes
Caption title.
"October 31, 2019."
Local PDF available in high- and low-resolution versions.
Despite over a century of prospecting and field research, fossil vertebrates are exceedingly rare in Paleogene and Neogene rocks in northern Canada's Yukon Territory. Here, we describe the first records of probable Neogene vertebrate fossils from the territory, including tooth fragments of a rhinocerotid, a partial calcaneum of an artiodactyl, shell fragments of the pond turtle Chrysemys s.l. and tortoise Hesperotestudo, and a fragment of a palatine of Esox (pike). Although the tooth fragments cannot be identified solely by traditional paleontological means, we use tooth enamel microstructure, and primarily the presence of vertical Hunter-Schreger bands, to refer them to the Rhinocerotidae. As the only known record of the Rhinocerotidae in North America's western Arctic, the tooth fragments from the Wolf Creek site support the hypothesis that the clade dispersed between Asia and North America across Beringia. The fossils are consistent with a Miocene age for the Wolf Creek site that is inferred from radiometric dates of the Miles Canyon basalt flows in the vicinity of the fossil locality. Further, the tortoise and pond turtle fossils indicate a mild climate in the Yukon at the time, consistent with the vegetation reconstructions of others that indicate a warmer, wetter world in the Miocene than today.
Subjects
Dispersal
,
Esox
,
Fishes, Fossil
,
Mammals
,
Mammals, Fossil
,
Miocene
,
North America
,
Paleoecology
,
Paleontology
,
Rhinoceroses
,
Rhinoceroses, Fossil
,
Turtles, Fossil
,
Vertebrates, Fossil
,
Whitehorse Region
,
Yukon
Call Number
QL1 .A436 no.3943 2019
Language
English
Identifiers
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1206/3943.1
OCLC:
1125944962
Find in a local library