Hiatus Site (Oligocene of Australia)

Also known as Hiatus A Local Fauna, Riversleigh; Queensland Museum Locality 941

Where: Queensland, Australia (19.1° S, 138.7° E: paleocoordinates 34.0° S, 133.4° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Faunal Zone A zone, Carl Creek Limestone Formation, Chattian (28.1 - 23.0 Ma)

• The Hiatus Site is listed among "System A"-aged sites in Travouillon et al. (2006, Alcheringia, 30, Suppl. 1, 323-349).

•The suboptimal stratigraphic nomenclature of Archer et al. (1997, Mém. Trav. École Prat. Hautes Études Inst. Montpellier, 21, 131–152) is replaced by a concept of faunal zones by Arena (2004, PhD thesis, Uviv. New South Wales, Sydney), confirmed by Travouillon et al. (2006). Faunal Zones A, B, C are identical to "Systems" A, B, C of Archer et al. (1997). Faunal Zone A is Late Oligocene in age.

•Megirian et al. 2010: The Carl Creek Limestone produces distinctly Wipajirian and distinctly Camfieldian assemblages plus a suite of species that apparently ranged locally across the Wipajirian/Camfieldian boundary (Wipajirian–Camfieldian estimated to span ~24.9–12 Ma).

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: terrestrial; carbonate

• Fossiliferous rocks of the Riversleigh area are said to represent freshwater carbonates whose depositional history appears to involve a complex sequence of fluvial and karst processes (Archer et al., 2006, Alcheringia, 30, Suppl. 1, 1-17 and references cited therein).

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils

Collected in 2002

Collection methods: acetic,

• "Riversleigh fossils are rarely articulated but usually undistorted, can be completely freed from matrix with acid [...]" (Scanlon, 2006).

•QMF = paleontology collections of Queensland Museum

Primary reference: J. D. Scanlon. 2006. Skull of the large non-macrostomatan snake Yurlunggur from the Australian Oligo-Miocene. Nature 439:839-842 [J. Head/J. Head]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 134945: authorized by Johannes Mueller, entered by Torsten Liebrecht on 19.10.2012, edited by Albert Garcia Selles, Philip Mannion, Mark Uhen and Grace Varnham

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Mammalia
 Diprotodontia - Maradidae
Marada arcanum n. gen. n. sp.1
Marada arcanum n. gen. n. sp.1 Black 2007 diprotodont marsupial
 Diprotodontia - Palorchestidae
Ngapakaldia bonythoni2 Stirton 1967 diprotodont marsupial
Reptilia
 Squamata - Madtsoiidae
Yurlunggur sp. Scanlon 1992 snake
Larger individual: Spine and fragmentary right maxilla (QMF45217), dentary (QMF45073), frontal (QMF45388) and articulated partial braincase (QMF45111). Smaller individual: right frontal (QMF45389) and exoccipital–opisthotic (QMF45390).
 Squamata - Varanidae
Varanus sp.3 Merrem 1820 monitor lizard
 Crocodylia -
Trilophosuchus sp.4 Willis 1993 crocodilian
QMF60374 (isolated parietal)
? Mekosuchus whitehunterensis5 Willis 1997 crocodilian
QM F56320 and 56321
Aves
 Anseriformes - Anseranatidae
Eoanseranas handae n. gen. n. sp.7
Eoanseranas handae n. gen. n. sp.7 Worthy and Scanlon 2009 waterfowl
 Dromornithiformes - Dromornithidae
Dromornis murrayi n. sp.6 Worthy et al. 2016 bird