A Late Pleistocene Vertebrate Assemblage 

 from the St. Marks River, Wakulla County, Florida 



Timothy S. Young 1 and Joshua Laerm 



The University of Georgia Museum of Natural History and 



Department of Zoology, 



University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602 



ABSTRACT— The St. Marks River in the central panhandle of Florida 

 contains a well known, apparently late Pleistocene vertebrate as- 

 semblage that has been only superficially examined and reported. 

 Previous collections are reviewed, and we report on new fossil 

 materials recently obtained. Included are 37 species of mammals, 

 26 birds, 13 reptiles, 2 amphibians, and 9 fish. Of these, 14 

 species of mammals and 2 reptiles are limited solely to the Pleis- 

 tocene. The fauna is mixed and reflects heterochronous deposition 

 over time beginning at least in the late Pleistocene (Wisconsinan) 

 and extending through the Recent. The species present reflect mixed 

 woodland and grassland terrestrial communities as well as mixed 

 estuarine and freshwater aquatic communities. The St. Marks River 

 assemblage compares well to other contemporaneous late Pleisto- 

 cene Florida panhandle sites. One extralimital taxa is reported, 

 Pylodictic cf. P. olivaris, the flathead catfish, whose natural range 

 has not been reported east of the Mobile Bay drainage basin. 



Florida is characterized by a number of rich and well 

 documented Pleistocene vertebrate assemblages (Webb 1974a, 

 Lundelius et al. 1983, Webb and Wilkins 1984) that contain a mixture 

 of extant and extinct South American immigrant and North 

 American endemic species. The majority of these sites are 

 distributed throughout the peninsular portion of the State (Webb 

 1974a, Webb and Wilkins 1984). However, with the exceptions of 

 Wakulla Springs (Brodkorb 1963, Webb 1974a), Chipola River 

 (Martin 1969, Webb 1974a), and Aucilla River (Olson 1972, Webb 

 1914a, Gillette 1976a) very little attention has been devoted to sites 

 on the panhandle of Florida. The St. Marks River, located 32 km 

 south of Tallahassee in Wakulla County, is a particularly rich, late 

 Pleistocene panhandle site that has only been superficially 

 investigated (Gillette 19766, Steadman 1980). 



Leidy (1870), who reported on the occurrence of Mammuthus 

 columbi (now M. jeffersonii), provided the first record of vertebrate 

 fossil remains recovered from the St. Marks River, though the exact 

 locality was not given. Subsequently, the St. Marks River has attracted 



'Present address: Department of Zoology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611. 



Brimleyana 18:15-57, June 1993 15 



