Richard C. Hulbert

• PhD
• Retired at Florida Museum of Natural History

A newly discovered deposit on the bed of the Steinhatchee River produced a moderately diverse assemblage of 15 vertebrate taxa herein designated the Steinhatchee River 2A (STR 2A) local fauna. Mammalian taxa isotopically shown from other sites to be either grazers or grazing-dominated mixed-feeders numerically dominate the fauna, especially a speci...

Nine years of excavations at Montbrook (ca. 5.9 Ma, Levy Co., Florida) have recovered ca. 250,000 vertebrate fossils from an area of 525 m 2. Over 90% are fish, alligator, turtle, and other aquatic taxa; this in addition to sedimentological evidence supports a fluvial depositional environment. Three fossil-bearing units are recognized, Strata 2, 2A...

The 2015–2023 excavations at the Montbrook Site in Levy County, north-central Florida, recovered more than 125,000 vertebrate fossils from an area of about 500 m2 . Of these, over 90% are from aquatic or semi-aquatic taxa. The site’s age is latest Miocene (late Hemphillian), ca. 5.5–5.8 Ma, based on mammalian biochronology. The depositional environ...

New World porcupines (Erethizontinae) originated in South America and dispersed into North America as part of the Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI) 3-4 million years ago. Extant prehensile-tailed porcupines (Coendou) today live in tropical forests of Central and South America. In contrast, North American porcupines (Erethizon dorsatum) are t...

Abstract – A rich Rancholabrean local fauna representing a freshwater marsh community with adjacent uplands is identified from a site in St. Petersburg, Florida. During the winter of 2008, sediments excavated on the Eckerd College campus produced a previously unknown assemblage of fossil terrestrial and aquatic vertebrates. All fossils found to dat...

The Pleistocene vertebrate fossil record of Florida is generally regarded as excellent, with about 800 known localities producing over 200,000 tetrapod specimens, most collected from sites assigned to the late Rancholabrean (51%), late Blancan (26%), or early Irvingtonian (16%) Land Mammal Ages. Collectively the three other Pleistocene intervals, t...

Two partial vertebrae of the rare, large-bodied, aquatic salamander Batrachosauroides are reported from the Upper Miocene Love Bone Bed (late Clarendonian, ~10–9 Ma) Alachua County, Florida. They represent the latest occurrence of Batrachosauroides by 2.8–5.8 million years from previous records and are the latest account of the family Batrachosauro...

Two partial vertebrae of the rare, large-bodied, aquatic salamander Batrachosauroides are reported from the Upper Miocene Love Bone Bed (late Clarendonian, ~10–9 Ma) Alachua County, Florida. They represent the latest occurrence of Batrachosauroides by 2.8–5.8 million years from previous records and are the latest account of the family Batrachosauro...

Apex predators play an important role in the top-down regulation of ecological communities. Their hunting and feeding behaviors influence, respectively, prey demography and the availability of resources to other consumers. Among the most iconic—and enigmatic—terrestrial predators of the late Cenozoic are the Machairodontinae, a diverse group of big...

Dietary variation within species has important ecological and evolutionary implications. While theoreticians have debated the consequences of trait variance (including dietary specialization), empirical studies have yet to examine intraspecific dietary variability across the globe and through time. Here, we use new and published serial sampled δ ¹³...

Fossils of the ursid Indarctos from Withlacoochee River 4A of Florida (late early Hemphillian North American Land Mammal Age, Hh2, ~ 7.5–6.5 Ma) represent the best sample of this genus in North America, including both craniodental and postcranial specimens, yet only the skull has been described. In this study, we describe the other material of this...

Phyletic dwarfing in the fossil record is quite common, and numerous studies of allometric size reduction after dwarfing are documented. Studies of ontogenetic growth in the fossil record are also popular, but with a different set of expectations. But only rarely has anyone compared the trends of ontogenetic growth in a fossil organism with the slo...

Investigation of teleostean otoliths (n = 418) recovered from the late Pleistocene (Rancholabrean) Jones Girls Site, Chatham County, Georgia, represents just the second study of Pleistocene otoliths in Georgia and only the fifth study of Pleistocene otoliths for the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains. Geochronologic analysis suggests an age from 80 K...

The limb skeleton of tapirs (Perissodactyla: Tapirus spp.) was traditionally thought to exhibit morphological variation only as a result of changes in body size. Here, we test whether forelimb variation exhibited by Tapirus is solely an artefact of size fluctuations through the tapir fossil record or whether it is influenced by habitat differences....

Supplementary FIle for MacLaren et al. 2018. Contents include: 1. Body Mass Calculations 2. Correcting for allometry 3. Phylogenetic Reconstruction 4. Multivariate Regression 5. Pairwise perMANOVAs 6. Phylogenetic Signal 7. Isotope Values 8. Supplementary phyMANOVAs 9. Supplementary References A list of specimens used in the analyses can be provide...

Supplementary file for MacLaren et al. (2018) A morphometric analysis of the forelimb in the genus Tapirus (Perissodactyla: Tapiridae) reveals influences of habitat, phylogeny and size through time and across geographical space. Including body mass calculations, allometric corrections, phylogenetic reconstruction and phylogenetic signal calculation...

List of specimens included in the analyses for MacLaren et al. (2018) A morphometric analysis of the forelimb in the genus Tapirus (Perissodactyla: Tapiridae) reveals influences of habitat, phylogeny and size through time and across geographical space.

A mandible of a tapir (Tapirus sp.) from the late Pliocene (early Blancan North American land mammal age–NALMA), Tonuco Mountain Local Fauna (LF), Doña Ana County, southern New Mexico, is a significant addition to the small sample of fossil tapirs known from the late Cenozoic of New Mexico. The Tonuco Mountain tapir mandible is not identified to th...

Presentation of the first results testing the size-shape relationship in the genus Tapirus through geological time and across geographic space. Size, phylogeny and adaptive morphology are all tested to ascertain whether body size (mass) is the only factor affecting post-cranial morphological differences in tapirs using the tetradactyl forelimb.

A matched pair of otoliths (right and left saccular otoliths) and associated skeletal remains (n = 107) of Apogon townsendi (belted cardinalfish) were obtained in unconsolidated sediment from inside the valves of an articulated scallop Carolinapecten eboreus. The scallop specimen was collected in Hendry County, Florida, from the lower Pleistocene C...

The cephalic shield of cingulates is a structure comprised of sutured osteoderms that is highly variable in overall shape and number of osteoderms across different taxa. The cephalic shields of the extinct giant armadillos (pampatheres) are poorly known. The late Blancan Haile 7G locality in north-central Florida has produced the largest known asse...

Two late Pleistocene skulls of Castoroides from Florida share a suite of morphologic features with two partial skulls from the early Pleistocene of Florida (including the holotype of Castoroides leiseyorum Morgan and White, 1995) and a late Pleistocene skull from South Carolina. These specimens are regarded as conspecific and can be readily disting...

Parahippines briefly were the numerically dominant group of equids in North America during the latest Arikareean and early Hemingfordian, and form an evolutionary grade intermediate between Miohippus and merychippines. Thomas Farm (early Hemingfordian, Gilchrist County, FL) has produced the largest-known, single locality sample for parahippines, wi...

The purpose of this application, under Article 75.5 of the Code, is to conserve the current usage of the name Terrapene putnami Hay, 1906. We propose replacement of the nondiagnostic holotype (a fragment of a left hypoplastron) that was collected from a temporally mixed locality, with a more complete specimen comprised of the carapace, plastron, an...

South-central Florida's latest Hemphillian Palmetto Fauna includes two machairodontine felids, the lion-sized Machairodus coloradensis and a smaller, jaguar-sized species, initially referred to Megantereon hesperus based on a single, relatively incomplete mandible. This made the latter the oldest record of Megantereon, suggesting a New World origin...

Character used in this analysis (1-25 modified from [20] ). (DOC)

Supplemental text. (DOC)

This paper describes the Dinero Local Fauna, a small collection of fossils from a roadcut in the Goliad Formation in Live Oak County, Texas. It is from higher in the section than the classic early Clarendonian Lapara Creek Fauna. Four mammalian taxa are present: the rodent Ceratogaulus cf. anecdotus, and the equids Pseudhipparion skinneri, Cormohip...

A fragmented fossil bone incised with the figure of a proboscidean was recently found at Vero Beach, Florida near the location where Late Pleistocene fauna and human bones were recovered from 1913 to 1916. This engraving may represent the oldest and only existing example of Terminal Pleistocene art depicting a proboscidean in the Americas. Because...

Nebraska and erected, apparently unaware of the European material, the genus Amblycastor. In 1934, Stirton described a mandible and isolated teeth from Mongolia as a second species of Amblycastor. Stehlin and Schaub (1950) were the first to point out the close relationship between Amblycastor and Anchitheriomys, based on the cheek teeth pattern. On...

Florida has the best late Blancan (early Pleistocene, 2.6–1.6 Ma) record of Tapirus in North America. The genus is currently known from 25 fossil localities of Blancan age, ranging through most of the peninsular region of the state. Three species are recognized from this time interval in Florida: the relatively large-sized Tapirus haysii Leidy; the...

The stable isotope compositions of biologically precipitated apatite in bone, teeth, and scales are widely used to reconstruct past climate and to obtain information on the diet, behavior, and physiology of extinct organisms. Apatite is an attractive target for paleoclimate studies because biogenic and inorganic apatites are frequently preserved in...

The stable isotope compositions of biologically precipitated apatite in bone, teeth, and scales are widely used to obtain information on the diet, behavior, and physiology of extinct organisms and to reconstruct past climate. Here we report the application of a new type of geochemical measurement to bioapatite, a "clumped-isotope" paleothermometer,...

Fossils of the giant short-faced bear. Arctodus simus (Cope. 1879), have been recovered from over 100 localities in North America, extending from Mexico to Alaska and California to Virginia. Despite this large range, the species has never been recorded from the southeastern United States. The lesser short-faced bear, Arctodus pristinus Leidy, 1854...

The previously poorly known "Tapiravus" polkensis Olsen, 1960 (Mammalia, Perissodactyla, Tapiridae) is now known from abundant, well preserved specimens from both the type area in central Florida and from the Gray Fossil Site (GFS) in eastern Tennessee. The latter has produced over 75 individuals, the greatest number of tapirids from a single fossi...

The first appearance of mammoth (Mammuthus) is currently used to define the beginning of the Irvingtonian North American Land Mammal Age at about 1.4 Ma. Thereafter, mammoth fossils are common and widespread in North America until the end of the Pleistocene. In contrast to this generally accepted biochronology, recent reports have asserted that mam...

For the past 50 years, all Pleistocene tayassuids from the United States have been referred to either Platygonus or Mylohyus. Underwater excavation of an in situ deposit on the bed of the Peace River in De Soto County, Florida, recovered a late Pleistocene (Rancholabrean) fauna of freshwater and terrestrial vertebrates. Here named the Peace River 5...

Forty-seven species of land mammals are present in the latest Hemphillian (early Pliocene) Palmetto Fauna of Florida. This composite fauna comes from fluvioestuarine sediments of the upper Bone Valley Formation exposed in diverse mines within the Central Florida Phosphate District. The fauna, including 18 carnivorans and 22 ungulates, lived at a ti...

The fluvial Goliad Formation crops out along the coastal plain of South Texas. In the 1950s-60s, the Lapara Creek Fauna, from low in the section and including virtually all the then known Goliad fossils, was assigned to the early Clarendonian (12 Ma) North American Land Mammal Age (NALMA). A Labahia Mission Fauna, based only on a tooth and leg bone...

Paleokarst deposits containing vertebrate fossils are known from the early Oligocene to the late Pleistocene in peninsular Florida. Most of these sites consist of caves, sinkholes, or fissures developed in Paleogene carbonate rocks in northern Florida, although sinkholes in Neogene carbonates have produced some vertebrate fossil sites in the southe...

The giant flightless terror bird Titanis walleri is known from Florida and Texas during the late Neogene. The age of T. walleri is problematic because this taxon co-occurs with temporally mixed (i.e., time-averaged) faunas at two key sites. Thus, prior to this study, T. walleri from the Santa Fe River, Florida (type locality), was either as old as...

The Mauvilla local fauna, Mobile County, Alabama, contains 15 mammalian taxa, of which 12 are either new or have not previously been reported from this locality. Most abundant are three equids, Cormohipparion emsliei, Neohipparion eurystyle, and Protohippus gidleyi, a new species of protoceratid artiodactyl, Synthetoceras davisorum, and a large spe...

Tapirus webbi n. sp. is a relatively large tapir from north-central Florida with a chronologic range of very late Clarendonian (Cl3) to very early Hemphillian (Hh1), or ca. 9.5 to 7.5 Ma. It is about the size of extant Tapirus indicus but with longer limbs. Tapirus webbi differs from Tapirus johnsoni (Cl3 of Nebraska) by its larger size, relatively...

Deciduous premolars of Mammut americanum have received relatively little study, and previous work was based on small sample sizes. We present morphologic descriptions and quantitative data for a sample of over 135 deciduous premolars of M. americanum from Florida. Most second and third deciduous premolars are bilophodont, although a few anomalous t...

A partial skull of a juvenile hipparionine equid from Ellesmere Island, Canada, is the northernmost fossil record of a horse (788 330 N). Biostratigraphical analysis of the associated fossil biota suggests an age of 3·5 to 4 Ma (early Pliocene). Preserved facial characteristics of the equid include a very reduced preorbital fossa located posterior...

A shallow-marine fossil biota was recovered from the Blue Bluff unit (formerly part of the McBean Formation) in the Upper Coastal Plain of eastern Georgia. Biochronologically significant mollusks (e.g., Turritella nasuta, Cubitostrea sellaeformis, Pteropsella lapidosa) and calcareous nannoplankton (e.g., Chiasmolithus solitus, Reticulofenestra umbi...

Four new late Pleistocene faunas have been collected in Chatham County, Georgia, in the vicinity of Savannah. Together they have produced 103 vertebrate taxa (12 chondrichthyans, 25 actinopterygians, 7 amphibians, 20 reptiles, 4 birds, and 35 mammals), of which at least 14 are extinct. About 75 percent of these taxa are reported for the first time...

Archaeocete whales are a paraphyletic assemblage of species that represent the evolutionary intermediaries between modern, fully marine cetaceans (Odontoceti and Mysticeti) and their terrestrial ancestors, the Mesonychia (Van Valen, 1966; Fordyce and Barnes, 1994; Thewissen, 1994). For over 80 years the holotype specimen of Protocetus atavus from t...

Twelve new records of the giant North American tapir Tapirus haysi, are reported from Alachua, Levy, Citrus, Polk, and Hillsborough counties, Florida. Biochronologic analysis of associated vertebrates indicates T. haysii was limited to the late early-middle Irvingtonian (ca. 1.5-0.6 Ma) in Florida. The sample of T. haysii from the Leisey Shell Pit...

The Leisey Shell Pit Local Fauna was collected from two adjacent commercial shell mines located 7 km southwest of Ruskin and less than 1 km inland from Tampa Bay in Hillsborough County, Florida Leisey Shell Pit is one of the most diverse Irvingtonian vertebrate faunas in North America, composed of at least 203 species: 14 sharks, 9 rays, 50 bony fi...

The terrestrial mammal fraction of the Leisey Shell Pit 1 A bone assemblage (early Pleistocene) is numerically dominated by medium-sized herbivores, with camelids and equids accounting for 45% and 22% of the individuals, respectively. Some taphonomic modifications to the bone assemblage look place at the site of deposition (scratchmarks, breakage,...

Three species of Equus (informally designated Equus sp. A, Equus sp. B, and Equus sp. C) are recognized from the Irvingtonian (latest Pliocene-middle Pleistocene) of Florida. The most widespread and abundant of the three, Equus sp. A resembles E. scotti and E. conversidens in most characters but is intermediate in size between these two species. It...

This 1993 book examines case studies of North American Quaternary mammalian evolution within the larger domain of evolutionary theory. It presents studies of a variety of taxa (xenarthrans, rodents, carnivores, ungulates) examined over several temporal scales, from a few thousand years during the Holocene to millions of years of late Pliocene and P...

Late Clarendonian and very early Hemphillian horse teeth from Florida previously identified as early members of Nannippus aztecus (=N. minor) are referred instead to N. westoni (Simpson). N. westoni was originally assigned to Merychippus and thought to date from the early Miocene. The very low crown height in the teeth of the type specimen is the r...

The 18 m.y. history of the subfamily Equinae (exclusive of Archaeohippus and "Parahippus") in North America consisted of a 3-m.y. radiation phase, a 9-m.y. steady-state diversity phase, and a 6-m.y. reduction phase. During the steady-state phase, species richness varied between 14 and 20, with two maxima at about 13.5 and 6.5 Ma. Species richness o...

The genus Merychippus has traditionally comprised a horizontal grade of incipiently hypsodont, middle Miocene, North American horses. Phylogenetic relationships both among merychippines and with younger, fully hypsodont clades were poorly delineated at best, thus prohibiting detailed analysis of the radiation of grazing equids. A single, most parsi...

E. H. Sellards (1916, p. 96) applied the new binomen “ Hipparion minor ” to the very small hipparionine horse from the early Pliocene Bone Valley District of peninsular Florida. Since the gender of Hipparion is neuter, the ending of the species name must be amended to agree with it (Articles 32d and 34b, ICZN, 1985), and thus the correct spelling o...

Leisey Shell Pit, on the southeastern edge of Tampa Bay, has produced the largest early Pleistocene vertebrate fauna in North America, consisting of about 30,000 cataloged specimens. The predominantly terrestrial and freshwater vertebrate fauna was transported into an estuarine environment during a regressive phase in an otherwise marine, bay-botto...

Adaptive radiations are generally considered to be periods of rapid evolutionary change. Simpson viewed rates of evolution as either taxonomic or morphological and various methods for their quantification are widely used. In contrast to classic studies of extant organisms, adaptive radiations of fossil groups are usually analysed on the superspecif...

Five species of Cormohipparion are recognized from the late middle Miocene to late Pliocene (late Barstovian through Blancan) of Florida. A small sample of isolated teeth collected from a late Barstovian horizon of the lower Bone Valley Formation, south-central Florida, represents Cormohipparion sp., cf. C sphenodus. In the Clarendonian, a larger s...

Cormohipparion emsliei n. sp. is documented from the latest Hemphillian and late Blancan of peninsular Florida. This extends the known temporal range of the genus in North America by about four million years. C. emsliei continues and accentuates many of the trends observed in earlier species of Cormohipparion, including increased fossette complexit...

Nine species of Calippus and four species of Protohippus are recognized from the late Miocene (late Barstovian to early Hemphillian, from about 14.0 ma to 6.0 ma) of the Gulf Coastal Plain. Two subgenera of Calippus are recognized: C. (Calippus) which includes four small species, C. proplacidus n. comb. (senior synonym of C. francisi), C. placidus,...

Three successive species of Neohipparion are recognized from the Gulf Coastal Plain: N. affine from the early Clarendonian Lapara Creek Fauna of Texas; N . trampasense from the very late Clarendonian and early Hemphillian of Florida; and N. eurystyle from the late early and late Hemphillian of Florida. Numerous specimens from the Love Site, Alachua...

The seven species of Pseudhipparion are, from oldest to youngest, as follows: unnamed species; P. retrusum; P. curtivallum, new combination; P. hessei, new species; P. gratum; P.skinneri, new species; and P. simpsoni, new species. They range from late Barstovian through latest Hemphillian in the Great Plains and the Gulf Coastal Plain. Both the phy...

The horse Parahippus leonensis is the most numerous large mammal known from the important early Miocene Thomas Farm fossil locality. A large sample of mandibles (n = 89) of P. leonensis was analyzed. Despite having a variable dental morphology, morphometric studies indicate that only one species is represented. Sexual dimorphism in body size is sug...