Laguna La Paraguaya (Neogene of Argentina)

Also known as LLP; near Carhué city

Where: Buenos Aires, Argentina (37.1° S, 62.8° W: paleocoordinates 37.3° S, 60.5° W)

• coordinate stated in text

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Cerro Azul Formation, Huayquerian (8.0 - 5.0 Ma)

• The Cerro Azul Formation outcrops are located in the north-western, central, and eastern part of La Pampa province and adjacent western Buenos Aires province, Argentina (Linares, Llambías & Latorre, 1980; Folguera & Zárate, 2009; Visconti et al., 2010). The unit is characterized by a monotonous succession of loess containing moderately developed paleosols (Fig. 4) that has been assigned to the late Miocene (Huayquerian Land Mammal age) essentially on the basis of its mammal remains (Montalvo & Casadío, 1988; Verzi, Montalvo & Vucetich, 1999; Verzi, Montalvo & Tiranti, 2003). In particular, the formation is considered as representing the interval between 10 and 5.7 Ma (Cione et al., 2000; Verzi, Montalvo & Deschamps, 2008)

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: terrestrial; burrowed, muddy siltstone

• The maximum exposed thickness in outcrop is 54 m, although the unit reaches about 180 m in the subsurface (Visconti et al., 2010). The formation is essentially composed of structureless, light brown (5YR 6/4), pale reddish brown (10R 5/4) or grayish orange pink (5YR 7/2), sandy siltstones and fine-grained sandstones, showing moderate selection and common carbonate cementation

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils

Collection methods: Fossil material collected in burrows from Laguna La Paraguaya locality (Buenos Aires province) are housed at the Museo Histórico Regional de Guaminí ‘‘Coronel Marcelino E. Freyre’’ under the acronym MHG-P

•Field work was approved by the Dirección Provincial de Museos y Preservación Patrimonial, under the Project ‘‘Vertebrados del Mioceno tardío-Plioceno en el área de las lagunas encadenadas del oeste de la provincia de Buenos Aires. Aportes a la bioestratigrafía del Cenozoico tardío de la Región Pampeana’’, permit nr. 2015-3-P-156-2.

Primary reference: M. C. Cardonatto and R. N. Melchor. 2018. Large mammal burrows in late Miocene calcic paleosols from central Argentina: paleoenvironment, taphonomy and producers. PeerJ 6:e4787 [P. Mannion/M. Kouvari]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taphonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 206032: authorized by Philip Mannion, entered by Miranta Kouvari on 29.10.2019, edited by Franco Aspromonte and Grace Varnham

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

• The body fossils are only included here.
Mammalia
 Mammalia -
 Notoungulata - Mesotheriidae
Mesotheriinae indet. Alston 1876 notoungulate
 Notoungulata - Hegetotheriidae
Paedotherium minor Cabrera 1937 notoungulate
 Panameriungulata - Proterotheriidae
Neobrachytherium sp.2 Soria 2001 placental
MHG-P 126-35, associated right p4, m1, m2 and m3, more or less incomplete
 Panameriungulata - Macraucheniidae
Macraucheniinae indet.2 Gervais 1855 placental
 Carnivora - Procyonidae
Cyonasua longirostris1 Rovereto 1914 procyonid carnivore
MHG-P 126/42, skull with left I1-I3, C, P2-M2; right I1, I3, C, P1-M2. Right hemimandible with i3, c, p1, p3-m2
 Cingulata - Glyptodontidae
Glyptodontidae indet. Burmeister 1879 glyptodon
 Cingulata -
Eosclerocalyptus sp. Ameghino 1919 edentate
 Cingulata - Dasypodidae
Doellotatus sp. Bordas 1932 armadillo