Salicas Formation, Sierra de Velasco, La Rioja (Neogene of Argentina)

Also known as El Degolladito area - Site 1

Where: La Rioja, Argentina (28.3° S, 67.0° W: paleocoordinates 28.6° S, 64.9° W)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• local area-level geographic resolution

When: Salicas Formation, Huayquerian (8.0 - 5.0 Ma)

• Cerdeno and Schmidt 2013: the details on geographic provenance and stratigraphic correlations are described in this paper. Tauber (2005) assigned the faunal remains to the Huayquerian Age (late Miocene) and Brandoni et al. (2012) established correlations with the well-known Neogene beds of the Andalhuala and Chiquimil formations, in Catamarca Province. They considered that the Salicas assemblage can roughly correspond to the range from 6.02 to 6.68 Ma obtained for these levels (Marshall and Patterson, 1981), closer to the recently proposed Huayquerian/Montehermosan boundary for the North- west of Argentina (Reguero and Candela, 2011).

Environment/lithology: fluvial-lacustrine; brown sandstone

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils

Preservation: permineralized

Collection methods: Centro Regional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Transferencia Tecnológica de La Rioja, Sección Paleozoología

Primary reference: A. A. Tauber. 2005. Mamíferos fósiles y edad de la Formación Salicas (Mioceno tardío) de la sierra de Velasco, La Rioja, Argentina. Ameghiniana 42(2):443-460 [D. Croft/D. Croft]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 55596: authorized by Darin Croft, entered by Darin Croft on 01.11.2005, edited by Juan Carrillo, Evangelos Vlachos, Kateryn Pino and Miranta Kouvari

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Amphibia
 Salientia -
Anura indet. Fischer von Waldheim 1813 frog
Mammalia
 Notoungulata - Mesotheriidae
Mesotheriinae indet.2 Alston 1876 notoungulate
 Notoungulata - Interatheriidae
Protypotherium sp. Ameghino 1882 notoungulate
 Notoungulata - Hegetotheriidae
Hemihegetotherium torresi3 Cabrera and Kraglievich 1931 notoungulate
Tremacyllus impressus3 Ameghino 1888 notoungulate
Paedotherium minor3 Cabrera 1937 notoungulate
 Rodentia - Chinchillidae
Lagostomus pretrichodactyla3 Rovereto 1914 viscacha
 Rodentia -
Neophanomys biplicatus Rovereto 1914 caviomorph
 Rodentia - Caviidae
Orthomyctera andina Rovereto 1914 caviomorph
 Rodentia - Dinomyidae
Potamarchus sp. Burmeister 1885 caviomorph
Potamarchus murinus3 Burmeister 1885 caviomorph
 Panameriungulata - Proterotheriidae
Neobrachytherium sp.1 Soria 2001 placental
 Cingulata -
"Eosclerocalyptus planus" = Eosclerocalyptus proximus
"Eosclerocalyptus planus" = Eosclerocalyptus proximus Moreno and Mercerat 1891 edentate
 Cingulata - Dasypodidae
Proeuphractus sp. Ameghino 1886 armadillo
Larger than P. limpidus, could be new species
Proeuphractus limpidus Ameghino 1886 armadillo
Chaetophractus sp. Fitzinger 1871 hairy armadillo
Macrochorobates scalabrinii Moreno and Mercerat 1891 armadillo
Reptilia
 Testudines -
Testudines indet. Batsch 1788 turtle