Pleistocene Mammals Central Florida 71 



cavern in a 5 m high limestone bluff of the early Miocene Hawthorne 

 Formation (Rosenau et al. 1977). The mouth of the cavern is about 1.5 

 m in diameter. The Rock Springs fauna has been collected along the 

 initial 200 m of the spring run, and the underlying Crystal River Forma- 

 tion of the Ocala Group (late Eocene age) is exposed in places along the 

 run. Present habitats in the surrounding region are the longleaf pine- 

 turkey oak sandhill ecosystem and the live oak xeric hammock associa- 

 tion, as is common in the upland karst regions of peninsular Florida. 

 Mesic hardwoods and other floodplain and freshwater marsh species 

 occupy the adjacent riparian corridor. 



The material comprising the Rock Springs mammal fauna repre- 

 sents the efforts of many amateurs and professionals, including J. 

 Bauer, R. and J. Franz, L. F. Lovell, Mrs. C. A. Meyer, G. S. Morgan, 

 J. W. Pierce, G. M. Ponton, A. E. Pratt, R. Savage, C. Simpson, J. R. 

 Todd, K. T. Wilkins and G. E. Woolfenden. Additional Rock Springs 

 fossils are contained in the private collection of H. James Gut, which is 

 now in the custody of his son, Robert M. Gut of Jacksonville, Florida. 

 Specimen numbers cited in the following annotated species list refer to 

 the catalogue of the Florida State Museum Vertebrate Paleontology 

 Collection at the University of Florida (UF). Catalogue numbers pre- 

 ceded by "V" are part of the Florida Geological Survey collection which 

 is also housed with the UF collection. 



ANNOTATED SPECIES LIST 



Order Insectivora 



Family Soricidae 



Blarina cf. carolinensis (Bachman) 1837 



Material— Partial right mandible with iT, P4-M2, (UF 48997); 

 partial left mandible with Ml, (UF 48998). 



Remarks. — Short-tailed shrews in Pleistocene deposits in Florida 

 have previously been referred to B. brevicauda, the name formerly app- 

 lied to most living populations of Blarina in eastern North America. 

 Recent morphometric and karyotypic study of modern populations 

 indicates that northern, southeastern and southwestern populations are 

 separate species, with southeastern populations referred to Blarina caro- 

 linensis (Genoways and Choate 1972; George et al. 1982). I apply caro- 

 linensis to the Rock Springs Blarina solely on geographic grounds. Sta- 

 tistical comparisons of later Pleistocene material from Florida with 

 modern B. brevicauda, B. hylophaga and B. carolinensis are necessary 

 to establish species identification. 



