26 C. C. Bentley, J. L. Knight, and M. A. Knoll 



Sylvilagus floridanus - Eastern Cottontail 

 Material: 2 left (.191, .192) and 1 right dentary (1 USNM). 



Remarks: Remains were identified by complete absence or presence 

 of a single anterior reentrant on the p3. 



This species is distributed from southern Canada south to Argentina 

 (Kurten and Anderson 1980). The eastern cottontail typically inhabits 

 areas with a mixture of herbaceous and shrubby plants in a disturbed 

 environment at some stage of successional transition that occur in 

 and among a variety of habitats (Webster et al. 1985). The eastern 

 cottontail occurs in the area of the Ardis site today. 



This is the first fossil record of this species reported from 

 South Carolina. 



Sylvilagus sp. 

 Material: 2 right distal femora fragments (.213, .214); 3 left partial 

 femora (.215, .216), (USNM); 1 right humerus (.217); 1 left distal 

 half of a humerus (.218); 1 proximal end of a humerus (.226); 1 right 

 partial scapula (.219); 2 distal and 1 proximal tibio-fibia ends (3 

 USNM); 1 left partial radius (.220); 1 ulna proximal end (.221); 4 left 

 partial innominate bones (.222, .223), (2 USNM); 3 left calcanea 

 (.224), (2 UF); 3 right calcanea (.225), (2 USNM). 



Remarks: All of the leporid postcranial elements from the Ardis local 

 fauna represent this genus, but we are unable to assign these elements 

 to a particular species in this genus. 



DISCUSSION 



Paleoecology and Paleoclimate 



The Ardis local fauna is one of only a handful of Rancholabrean 

 sites reported from the Atlantic Coastal Plain north of Florida, and is 

 the only C14 dated fauna from South Carolina. It was deposited during 

 the full glacial phase of the Wisconsin. This interval is poorly represented 

 in the fossil record, with New Trout Cave, West Virginia (Grady and 

 Garton 1982) and Bakers Bluff, Tennessee (Guilday et al. 1978) being 

 the only other fossil sites in the southeastern United States known to 

 be temporally similar. 



Two biases must be considered which may have skewed types 

 and frequency of remains recovered from the Ardis site: 1) collection 

 bias; a disproportional amount of the larger "easier to see" material 

 was collected. Comparatively little of the fossiliferous sediments was 

 screen-washed to retrieve the smaller material otherwise easily missed 



