Santiago Yolomécatl, Iniyoo Local Fauna (Eocene to of Mexico)

Also known as Yolomécatl, Inyoo, Tortugota

Where: Oaxaca, Mexico (17.5° N, 97.6° W: paleocoordinates 18.4° N, 91.1° W)

• coordinate stated in text

• local area-level geographic resolution

When: Yolomécatl Formation, Bartonian to Bartonian (41.3 - 28.1 Ma)

• Originally thought to be middle or late Eocene and described as the Yolomécatl Formation (Ferrusquia-Villafranca et al. 2018), a new U-Pb zircon maximum depositional age of 30.6 ± 0.77 Ma for a sandstone bed that is within the fossiliferous beds indicates an Arikareean 1 North American Land Mammal Age (NALMA) and it has been assigned to the Chilapa Formation instead (Guerrero-Arenas et al., 2020; see Ortiz-Caballero et al. 2020). However, Ferrusquía-Villafranca and Wang (2021) have argued that it is the Yolomécatl Formation, providing a 40Ar-39Ar age of 40.3 ± 1.0 Ma (latest Uintan-earliest Duchesnean NALMA)

•A corrected Ar–Ar age of 27.829 ± 0.716 Ma for the San Marcos Andesite, which overlies the Chilapa/Yolomécatl Formation close to the Yolomécatl fossiliferous beds, indicate an early Oligocene age for the formation (Guerrero-Arenas et al. 2020; Jiménez-Hidalgo et al. 2021).

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: fluvial-lacustrine; mudstone and chert

• " ... a sequence of about 200 m in thickness of thinly to thickly bedded

•mudstones with occasional coarse lenses and some beds of volcanic

•and limestone pebble, cobble and some boulder clasts, and unlike

•the Yanhuitlan Formation in all other areas, paleosols horizons are 

•abundant. Some thinly bedded chert layers are also intercalated

•with the fine-grained strata. The beds of the Yolomecatl unit are 

•much thicker (around 1 m or more) than those of the typical

•Yanhuitlan, showing a bimodal grain-size distribution, with minor

•pebble content."

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils

Preservation: trace

Collection methods: Specimens reposited in the Coleccion Científica del Laboratorio de Paleobiología, campus Puerto Escondido, Universidad del Mar under the acronyms UMPE for vertebrates and UMPLIC for ichnofossils.

Primary reference: E. Jiménez-Hidalgo, K. T. Smith, R. Guerrero-Arenas and J. Alvarado-Ortega. 2015. The first Late Eocene continental faunal assemblage from tropical North America. Journal of South American Earth Sciences 57:39-48 [P. Holroyd/P. Holroyd/P. Mannion]more details

Purpose of describing collection: general faunal/floral analysis

PaleoDB collection 166797: authorized by Patricia Holroyd, entered by Patricia Holroyd on 26.02.2015, edited by Clint Boyd, Philip Mannion, Grace Varnham and Evangelos Vlachos

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

unclassified
  -
Fictovichnus sciuttoi
UMPLIC 004 to UMPLIC 006, three moulds.
Mammalia
 Perissodactyla - Equidae
Miohippus assinoboiensis anchitheriine horse
UMPE 0612, mandible fragment with p4-m3.
 Perissodactyla - Amynodontidae
cf. Amynodontopsis sp. Stock 1933 odd-toed ungulate
UMPE 0623, mandible fragment with p4 and roots of m1em3.
 Perissodactyla - Rhinocerotidae
Trigonias sp. Lucas 1900 rhinoceros
UMPE 0624, left m2 and m3.
Subhyracodon sp.4 Wood 1927 rhinoceros
 Perissodactyla -
Tapiroidea indet. Gill 1872 odd-toed ungulate
 Perissodactyla - Chalicotheriidae
Chalicotheriidae indet. Gill 1872 chalicothere
UMPE 0042, mandible fragment with dp3 and dp4 talonid.
 Artiodactyla - Protoceratidae
Protoceratidae indet. Marsh 1891 protoceratid
UMPE 0283, P4-M2.
 Artiodactyla - Hypertragulidae
Nanotragulus sp. Lull 1922 ruminant
UMPE 0609, mandible fragment with p4-m3; UMPE 192, M3; UMPE 0086, astragalus
 Artiodactyla - Camelidae
Poebrotherium sp. Leidy 1847 camel
UMPE 0037, mandible fragment with m1em3
 Artiodactyla - Merycoidodontidae
Oreodontoides sp.4 Thorpe 1921 oreodont
Merycoidodon sp. Leidy 1848 oreodont
UMPE 0610, skull fragment
 Artiodactyla - Leptochoeridae
Leptochoerus sp. Leidy 1856 even-toed ungulate
UMPE 0175 M1eM2; UMPE 0570 mandible fragment with p3-m3.
 Artiodactyla - Tayassuidae
Perchoerus probus Leidy 1856 peccary
UMPE 0031, mandible fragment with m2em3. UMPE 0442, upper canine.
 Carnivora -
Caniformia "sp. 1" Kretzoi 1943 carnivoran
, UMPE 0112, mandible fragment with m2
Caniformia "sp. 2" Kretzoi 1943 carnivoran
 Carnivora - Amphicyonidae
Mammacyon sp.4 Loomis 1936 bear-dog
 Carnivora - Canidae
Cormocyon sp.4 Wang and Tedford 1992 bone-crushing dog
 Theriamorpha - Erinaceidae
Dzavui landeri n. gen. n. sp.3
Dzavui landeri n. gen. n. sp.3 Jiménez-Hidalgo et al. 2022 hedgehog
Holotype: UMPE 945, left dentary fragment preserving the alveolus of the p3, and the p4 and m1
 Lagomorpha - Leporidae
Archaeolagus sp.4 Dice 1917 rabbit
 Rodentia - Sciuridae
Sciuridae indet. Gray 1821 squirrel
 Rodentia -
aff. Jimomys sp. Wahlert 1976 rodent
"Aff. Jimomys nov." UMPE 0316, mandible fragment with p3 alveolus and p4-m2.
 Rodentia - Geomyidae
Geomyinae indet. Bonaparte 1845 pocket gopher
UMPE 0116, mandible fragment with dp4-m1.
 Rodentia - Entoptychidae
Gregorymys veloxikua n. sp.2 Jimenez-Hidalgo et al. 2018 rodent
UMPE 0156, skull fragment with P4-M3. UMPE 0178, mandible fragment with p4-m3.
Gregorymys mixtecorum n. sp.4 Ortiz-Caballero et al. 2020 rodent
UMPE 260 - type
Reptilia
 Squamata - Rhineuridae
Rhineura sp. Cope 1861 worm lizard
UMPE 0281, partial skull
 Testudines - Testudinidae
aff. Stylemys gisellae n. sp.1 Carbot-Chanona et al. 2022 turtle
UMPE 0341, several plastron elements
 Testudines - Pantestudinidae
aff. Hadrianus sp. Cope 1872 turtle
 Ichnofossils - Celliformidae
Celliforma curvata
UMPLIC 001 to UMPLIC 003, three internal moulds