Mario Cozzuol

• Dr.
• Professor (Associate) at Federal University of Minas Gerais

Overkill of large mammals is recognized as a key driver of Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions in the Americas and Australia. While this phenomenon primarily affected mega-mammals, its impact on large Quaternary reptiles has been debated. Freshwater turtles, due to the scarcity of giant forms in the Quaternary record, have been largely neglected in...

The introduction of non-native species (NNS) and the resulting biological invasions are conspicuous features of the Anthropocene Epoch. Parallel to these phenomena, some initiatives (political, social and scientific) have sought to value and protect invasive populations, recognizing some benefits that NNS may deliver to people and nature. Given thi...

Cranial and post-cranial variation is described for a large series of specimens of spectacled porpoise from Argentina and compared with that for specimens from other areas of the Southern Hemisphere. Condylobasal length in 54 adult skulls was 276-424. Tooth counts were 16-26 and 17-23 in the upper and lower jaws, respectively. Total number of verte...

Records of aquatic mammal fossils (e.g. cetaceans, pinnipeds, sirenians, mustelids, and desmostylians) from Latin America (Mexico to Tierra del Fuego, including Antartica) span since the mid-1800s. Aquatic mammal fossils received little attention from the scientific community, with most of the first studies conducted by Northern Hemisphere research...

Most tapirs are good seed dispersers. An exception is the Malayan tapir, Tapirus indicus, a seed predator (mainly of large seeds). Little is known about the capacity for tapirs to disperse seeds throughout their evolutionary history. We used the occlusal surface area (OSA) of tapir cheek teeth as a predictor of seed dispersal potential in living an...

Camelids have been known in South America since the late Pliocene, where they arrived from North America as part of the Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI). They became extinct in North America by the late Pleistocene, while surviving in the Southern Cone of South America and in high altitudes of the Andean region. Extinct South American camel...

Most tapirs are good seed dispersers. An exception is the Malayan tapir, Tapirus indicus, a seed predator (mainly of large seeds). Little is known about the capacity for tapirs to disperse seeds throughout their evolutionary history. We used the occlusal surface area (OSA) of tapir cheek teeth as a predictor of seed dispersal potential in living an...

Bite force is often associated with specific morphological features, such as sagittal crests. The presence of a pronounced sagittal crest in some tapirs (Perissodactyla: Tapiridae) was recently shown to be negatively correlated with hard-object feeding, in contrast with similar cranial structures in carnivorans. The aim of this study was to investi...

The Amazon region is a key area to understand the South America history, displaying a significant importance in the study of Pleistocene mammal fossils. Here, we present the taxonomic account of the first megafaunal records of the Quaternary deposits from bed and alluvial terraces from the Teles Pires River and its tributaries, in northern Mato Gro...

The earliest record of North American mammals in South America is significant for constraining the timing of intercontinental faunal interchange. At present, the oldest securely dated remains of a North American terrestrial mammal in South America pertain to a late Miocene procyonid; a few other North American mammal groups are present in late Mioc...

We report the first radiocarbon datings and carbon (d 13 C) and oxygen (d 18 O) stable isotopes data to reconstruct the paleoecology of medium to large herbivorous mammals from late Quaternary of southwestern Amazon (Acre and Rondônia states, Brazil). AMS 14 C dates for Neochoerus sp. (29,072-27,713 Cal yr BP), Notiomastodon platensis (25,454-24,88...

The genus Trichechus (Mammalia, Sirenia, Trichechidae) harbors a modest diversity, comprising only three living species of manatees, and no species currently recognized as fossil. Herein, we report a new extinct species of manatee from the late Pleistocene of the Brazilian Amazonia, Trichechus hesperamazonicus, sp. nov. It comes from the alluvial d...

Tapirs are perissodactyl ungulates of the genus Tapirus. The family Tapiridae was more diverse in the past. Genus Tapirus include five living species: T. indicus, T. pinchaque, T. bairdii, T. terrestris, and T. kabomani. Despite all the information available about tapirs, evolutionary relationships among species within the genus are still uncertain...

The first chondrichthyan teeth, dermal and oropharyngeal denticles from the Lower Cretaceous lacustrine Quiricó Formation (Sanfranciscana Basin), in southeastern Brazil are described. Eight microremains morphologies have been recovered from lower levels of this formation, dated as possibly Valanginian with basis on ostracods. The dermal denticles b...

El Mioceno temprano es uno de los momentos más importantes en la historia evolutiva de los cetáceos, sin embargo esta escasamente documentado en el registro fósil mundial. Dentro de los odontocetos, la superfamilia Platanistoidea (Oligoceno tardío/Mioceno temprano-actualidad) comprende mayormente especies extintas y una sola actual (Platanista gang...

The genus Trichechus (Mammalia, Sirenia, Trichechidae) harbors a modest diversity, comprising only three living species of manatees, with no full species currently recognized as fossil. Herein we report a new extinct species of Trichechus from the late Pleistocene of the Brazilian Amazonia. The new species comes from the deposits of the Rio Madeira...

The genus Trichechus (Mammalia, Sirenia, Trichechidae) harbors a modest diversity, comprising only three living species of manatees, with no full species currently recognized as fossil. Herein we report a new extinct species of Trichechus from the late Pleistocene of the Brazilian Amazonia. The new species comes from the deposits of the Rio Madeira...

The contents of the superfamily Platanistoidea, an early-diverging lineage comprising extinct species and a single extant representative of South Asian river dolphin (Platanista gangetica), remain controversial. We describe here a partial skull and associated tympano-periotic bones identified as a new genus and species, Aondelphis talen gen. et sp....

Balaenidae (right and bowhead whales) are a key group in understanding baleen whale evolution, because they are the oldest surviving lineage of crown Mysticeti, with a fossil record that dates back ∼20 million years. However, this record is mostly Pliocene and younger, with most of the Miocene history of the clade remaining practically unknown. The...

Supplementary material 1.

Supplementary material 3. Combined matrix.

Supplementary material 2. Morphological matrix dataset.

The presence of North American mammals in the late Miocene of the Amazon is significant for the timing of the faunal interchange between this subcontinent and South America. Unlike other North American mammalian groups already known for that time in South America (e.g., procyonids, sigmodontine rodents), artiodactyls are not known to have crossed w...

Tayassuidae is a family of pig-like Artiodactyla restricted to the New World. Despite its rich fossil history, they have received less attention from a taxonomic and phylogenetic perspective when compared to the Old World pigs, Suidae. In this study, we performed a computer assisted phylogenetic analysis using morphological and molecular data inclu...

The question whether taxonomic descriptions naming new animal species without type specimen(s) deposited in collections should be accepted for publication by scientific journals and allowed by the Code has already been discussed in Zootaxa (Dubois & Nemésio 2007; Donegan 2008, 2009; Nemésio 2009a–b; Dubois 2009; Gentile & Snell 2009; Minelli 2009;...

This plot is not part of the published stance but derives from it. The plot shows the number of authors by geographic region (courtesy of Dr. Diego Astua).

The family Tayassuidae is a successful group of piglike artiodactyls known as peccaries or javelinas. Currently, three recent species are recognized, ranging from southern North America to northcentral Argentina: Tayassu pecari (Link 1795), Pecari tajacu (Linnaeus 1758), and Catagonus wagneri (Rusconi 1930). However, tayassuids were much more diver...

A presença de mamíferos de origem Norte-Americana no continente Sul-Americano é um dos fatores significativos para o estabelecimento da cronologia do Grande Intercâmbio Biótico Americano (GABI). Apesar de trocas faunísticas ocasionais no final do Mioceno, é normalmente consensual de que a maior parte do intercâmbio aconteceu após a emersão do istmo...

The formation of the Isthmus of Panama stands as one of the greatest natural events of the Cenozoic, driving profound biotic transformations on land and in the oceans. Some recent studies suggest that the Isthmus formed many millions of years earlier than the widely recognized age of approximately 3 million years ago (Ma), a result that if true wou...

This chapter reviews information about the extinct fauna that lived in the Brazilian Intertropical Region (BIR) between 64 and 10 ka B.P. Data from the available literature regarding dating (14C, ESR, U-series) and paleodiet reconstruction (δ13C) for some of taxa of the BIR are herein presented. Furthermore, paleoenvironmental reconstructions of tw...

A specimen of a remarkable new catfish genus and species was collected in middle/late Miocene marine beds of the Puerto Madryn Formation at the base of the marine cliff of the sea lion colony area near Puerto Pirámide, southern coast of Península Valdés, northeastern Patagonia, Argentina. Siluriforms (catfishes) constitute a most important monophyl...

Factors such as the discordance on the choice of characters by different authors and the fragmentary condition of the majority of fossils are responsible for many issues on the taxonomy of the South American Tayassuidae. The extinct Tayassuidae species Catagonus stenocephalus (Lund in Reinhardt 1880) presents a confuse nomenclatural history and a q...

New records of Catagonus stenocephalus and Tayassu pecari are reported from the karst of Serra da Bodoquena, located at a south-western portion of Brazil near the border with Paraguay. Skull and lower jaw fragments at different stages of mineralisation were retrieved from two limestone underwater caves, Japonês and Nascente do Formoso, associated w...

Tayassuidae é um grupo de mamíferos Suiformes (Mammalia: Artiodactyla) exclusivos do continente americano. Embora muito semelhantes aos porcos "verdadeiros" pertencentes à família Suidae, eles possuem características únicas, como a orientação ventral dos caninos superiores e câmaras estomacais mais complexas. São reconhecidas três espécies viventes...

La historia evolutiva de los cetáceos estuvo marcada por al menos tres radiaciones adaptativas. La segunda radiación (Oligoceno-Mioceno Temprano) marcó la aparición de los Neoceti (Odontoceti y Mysticeti), y estuvo principalmente influenciada por la apertura del Océano Austral y cambios en el ecosistema oceánico y su productividad. Estas condicione...

Factors such as the discordance on the choice of characters by different authors and the fragmentary condition of the majority of fossils are responsible for many issues on the taxonomy of the South American Tayassuidae. The extinct Tayassuidae species Catagonus stenocephalus (Lund in Reinhardt 1880) presents a confusing nomenclatural history and a...

Balaenids or right whales are large and skim feeding baleen whales represented by four living species. They have been considered a key group in the understanding of Mysticeti evolution because some phylogenetic studies considered it as the most basal surviving family of Mysticeti. Balaenid fossil record is temporally long (early Miocene-Present) bu...

Voss et al. (this issue) took issue with our paper on a new species of Tapirus (Cozzuol et al. 2013), claiming that the evidence we presented was not ‘‘extraordinary’’ enough to support a new species of large mammal in the Amazon. We agree that a new large mammal species attracts more attention than a new smaller species; however, there is no real...

"River dolphins" are a paraphyletic group of toothed whales (Odontoceti) that represent independent secondary invasions of freshwater habitats. Different "river dolphin" lineages display suites of convergent morphological specializations that commonly reflect adaptations to riverine and freshwater environments, such as longirostry, reduced orbits,...

Marine mammal mass strandings have occurred for millions of years, but their origins defy singular explanations. Beyond human causes, mass strandings have been attributed to herding behaviour, large-scale oceanographic fronts and harmful algal blooms (HABs). Because algal toxins cause organ failure in marine mammals, HABs are the most common mass s...

All known species of extant tapirs are allopatric: 1 in southeastern Asia and 3 in Central and South America. The fossil record for tapirs, however, is much wider in geographical range, including Europe, Asia, and North and South America, going back to the late Oligocene, making the present distribution a relict of the original one. We here describ...

The objectives of the present study were to (1) provide new dates of Notiomastodon platensis (Ameghino, 1888) fossils from the Brazilian Intertropical Region, derived from Electron Spin Resonance (ESR); (2) propose a timeline for the occurrence of N. platensis in South America based on published data (ESR, 14C, 230Th/234U) and, finally, (3) propose...

A new genus and species of Ziphiidae, Notoziphius bruneti, gen. et sp. nov., from the late Miocene of Patagonia, is described on the basis of a well-preserved skull and partial left and right dentaries. It can be diagnosed by large, triangular, and markedly asymmetric nasals that strongly point anteroventrally, the ascending process of the maxilla...

ABSTRACT. We investigated the radiocarbon age and stable isotope composition of bioapatite from bone, enamel, and dentine material from 3 different species of extinct mammals in South America. Most samples of Eremotherium laurillardi, Toxodon platensis, and Notiomastodon platensis were collected in natural depressions located in the northeastern Br...

We investigated the radiocarbon age and stable isotope composition of bioapatite from bone, enamel, and dentine material from 3 different species of extinct mammals in South America. Most samples of Eremotherium laurillardi, Toxodon platensis , and Notiomastodon platensis were collected in natural depressions located in the northeastern Brazilian p...

Lately Hubbe et al. (2012) commented on the paper of Dantas et al. (2012) about cultural modifications made in an Eremothe-rium tooth recovered from, posed many questions about the geographical range of this Megafauna genus, and contested the polish marks diagnosis of the studied material presented. It is correct that since Lund's proposition of co...

The South American gomphotheres were previously classified in three genera and three species. Two biogeographic corridors are recognized for the dispersion of gomphotheres in South America. Cuvieronius hyodon was found mainly in the highlands and west to the Andes, and Stegomastodon platensis and Haplomastodon chimborazi were found in lowlands. The...

a b s t r a c t In South America, one of the most important themes is the effort to discover the diet of the extinct giant mammals that lived in this continent. This paper presents new data for the species Palaeolama major, acquired by the analysis of plant fragments found in coprolites. This species possibly lived in an open area, feeding on shrub...

The systematics of gomphotheres in South America is confused, and the status of some taxa is still subject to discussion. Recently, Prado and Alberdi published a cladistic analysis of the trilophodont gomphotheres, with emphasis on the South American species. Unfortunately, the paper has problems in many points, which invalidates the phylogeny itse...

The taxonomic history of South American Gomphotheriidae is very complex and controversial. Three species are currently recognized: Amahuacatherium peruvium, Cuvieronius hyodon, and Notiomastodon platensis. The former is a late Miocene gomphothere whose validity has been questioned by several authors. The other two, C. hyodon and N. platensis, are Q...

During the Pleistocene a fauna composed of large (biomass>44 kg) and giant mammals (biomass>1000 kg) that are usually associated with open environments lived in the Brazilian Intertropical Region. We present here new information concerning the paleoecology and chronology of some species of this megafauna. Carbon isotope analyses were performed for...

a b s t r a c t In South America, the relationship of humans and megafauna remains unknown and still under review. This paper describes a piece of a giant sloth tooth showing anthropogenic marks. This finding leads to two hypotheses: (1) Eremotherium laurillardi lived until the beginning of the Holocene, and interacted with humans; or, (2) humans a...

Sperm whales (Physeteroidea) are known since the late Oligocene. They became very diverse during the middle and late Miocene (Bianucci and Landini, 2006). They are currently represented by only three species. Sperm whales have been reported in Argentina from the early Miocene Gaiman Formation [Diaphorocetus pouchetti Moreno, 1892, and Idiorophus pa...

The record of Glyptotherium sp. in the Brazilian Northeastern region initiated a reinterpretation of the material previously assigned to Glyptodon and the distribution in the country. The most recent inter-pretation suggests that the materials found in the Brazilian Intertropical Region belong to Glyptotherium, with Glyptodon restricted to southern...

Two biogeographical units are generally recognized in the present shelf area of Argentina: the Magellanian and Argentinian Provinces. The two provinces differ in their fossil record. The evolution of these provinces has been characterized by migrations, extinctions, pseudoextinctions and, perhaps, even speciation events. Marine vertebrate assemblag...

LATE PLEISTOCENE MEGAFAUNA FROM SERGIPE, BRAZIL: TAXONOMIC AND CHRONOLOGICAL RECORDS. The Sergipe State is included in the Intertropical Region of Brazil (= IRB), and its fauna of large (biomass > 44 kg) and megamammals (biomass > 1000 kg) is still unknown. This paper reports three taxa for Fazenda Charco locality: Toxodon platensis Owen, Smilodon...

On the basis of paleontological content (vertebrates and palynology) and facies analysis from river banks, road cuts, and three wells, we have assigned the uppermost levels of the Solimões Formation in western Amazonia, Brazil, to the Late Miocene. The vertebrate fossil record from outcropping sediments is assigned to the Huayquerian–Mesopotamian m...

This chapter discusses the possible phylogenetic relationships within the superfamily Inioidea (using fossil record data) and provides detailed descriptions of Brachydelphidae, Pontoporiidae and Iniidae (including Goniodelphis, Ischyrhorhynchus, Saurocetes, Plicodontinia and a possible new species of Inia that is estimated to have arisen approximat...

Brachydelphis mazeasi Muizon, 1988a, from the Pisco Formation (middle Miocene, Peru), is an odontocete originally known from 2 incomplete skulls and a few associated postcranial elements, assigned to the family Pontoporiidae, and to the subfamily Brachydelphininae (¼ Brachydelphinae) created to include this genus. The holotype is considered here as...

Cayaoa bruneti Tonni, 1979 is an early Neogene anseriform exhumed from marine sediments of the lower levels of the Gaiman Formation ("Patagoniano", Leonian Marine Stage, Chubut, Argentina). It was originally based on a partial tarsometatarsus that was not assigned to subfamily or tribe. We re-examine the holotype and study new tarsometatarsi, and p...

Cetacean remains from two different stratigraphic units exposed in Falcon State, northwestern Venezuela, are described. The first record is derived from the Lower Miocene Cantaure Formation and the second from the Lower Pliocene Punta Gavilán Formation, The two specimens are identified as an indeterminate species of a platanistoid Squalodelphinidae...

The role of the extinct giant-toothed white sharkCarcharodon megalodon (Agassiz) in the Caribbean Neogene is discussed based on new evidence of predation on cetaceans from the Lower Pliocene Paraguaná Formation in Venezuela. Large sharks have occupied the highest trophic level in the marine environment. However, based on the recovery of a giant whi...

2007. A new Miocene penguin from Patagonia and its phylogenetic relationships. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 52 (2): 299–314. We describe a new medium−sized penguin, Madrynornis mirandus gen. et sp. nov., from the early late Miocene Puerto Madryn Formation, Chubut Province, Argentina. Although it is evident that extant and fossil penguins form a re...

Fossil content (vertebrate paleofauna and palynology) indicates that the sediments of the Solimões Formation in Acre (SW Brazilian Amazonia) are continental, having been deposited by avulsive fluvial belts in a floodbasin–floodplain environment. The main source area was the Andes chain. Widespread lacustrine swampy deposits, stacked channel deposit...

We describe a new medium−sized penguin, Madrynornis mirandus gen. et sp. nov., from the early late Miocene Puerto Madryn Formation, Chubut Province, Argentina. Although it is evident that extant and fossil penguins form a remarkably homogeneous family of birds, Spheniscidae, their within−group phylogenetic relationships are less obvious. In order t...

The genus Tapirus has four living species and a disjunct distribution (America and Asia). Its fossil record extends back to the Oligocene in Europe and middle Miocene in North America, with more than 20 nominal species. We describe here three specimens from the Pleistocene of Rondonia and Acre states, southwestern Amazonia. Morphometric analysis in...