Little Cretaceous Scavengers in Argentina

[Ben Creisler <bscreisler@yahoo.com>]

From: Ben Creisler
bscreisler@yahoo.com
 
 
Because of continuing issues with garbled text from the Yahoo-DML bug, I am 
trying to switch my DML address to Gmail to see if that solves the problem per 
advice from DML members. I tried to make the switch last week but it apparently 
has not been processed by Mary. For now, here's a new article in PLoS ONE. I 
hope the text here doesn't get too chopped up.....
 
 
Silvina de Valais, Sebastián Apesteguía & Alberto C. Garrido (2012) 
Cretaceous Small Scavengers: Feeding Traces in Tetrapod Bones from Patagonia, 
Argentina. 
PLoS ONE 7(1): e29841.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0029841
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0029841
　
Ecological relationships among fossil vertebrate groups are interpreted based 
on evidence of modification features and paleopathologies on fossil bones. Here 
we describe an ichnological assemblage composed of trace fossils on reptile 
bones, mainly sphenodontids, crocodyliforms and maniraptoran theropods. They 
all come from La Buitrera, an early Late Cretaceous locality in the Candeleros 
Formation of northwestern Patagonia, Argentina. This locality is significant 
because of the abundance of small to medium-sized vertebrates. The abundant 
ichnological record includes traces on bones, most of them attributable to 
tetrapods. These latter traces include tooth marks that provde evidence of 
feeding activities made during the sub-aerial exposure of tetrapod carcasses. 
Other traces are attributable to arthropods or roots. The totality of evidence 
provides an uncommon insight into paleoecological aspects of a Late Cretaceous 
southern ecosystem.