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Introduction
Systematics and paleoecology of crocodylians from the Tertiary of proto-Amazonia. Gavialoid phylogenetics and morphometrics. Crocodylian tactile sense patterns and evolution. Long-snouted crocodylians and the Neogene history of the Humboldt System.
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May 2016 - August 2016
Publications
Publications (172)
Gavialoidea is a clade of slender- and long-snouted crocodylomorphs with a single living species, the Indian gharial Gavialis gangeticus. Because elongated snouts (longirostry) have evolved independently in several crocodylomorph clades, this head shape has been interpreted as an ecological adaptation. How this condition affected patterns of divers...
Thirteen million years ago in South America, the PebasMega-Wetland System
sheltered multi-taxon crocodylian assemblages, with the giant caiman
Purussaurus as the top predator. In these Miocene swamps where reptiles
and mammals coexisted, evidence of their agonistic interactions is extremely
rare. Here, we report a tibia of the mylodontid sloth Pseu...
The evolution of crocodylians as sea dwellers remains obscure because living representatives are basically freshwater inhabitants and fossil evidence lacks crucial aspects about crocodylian occupation of marine ecosystems. New fossils from marine deposits of Peru reveal that croco-dylians were habitual coastal residents of the southeastern Pacific...
The fossil record of cetaceans documents how terrestrial animals acquired extreme
adaptations and transitioned to a fully aquatic lifestyle. In whales, this is associated with a substantial increase in maximum body size. Although an elongate body was acquired early in cetacean evolution, the maximum body mass of baleen whales reflects a recent dive...
ABSTRACT—Pliocene South American mammals prior to the Great American Biotic Interchange comprise the evolutionary pinnacle of a long-lasting process of continental isolation, in which large-scale orogeny and climate change were instrumental. These processes resulted in unique assemblages of extinct groups with peculiar anatomies. However, interpret...
Supplementary data used in this study, including a review of over 60 cases of body size estimation controversies in fossil animals.
Body size is of fundamental importance to our understanding of extinct organisms. Physiology, ecology and life history are all strongly influenced by body size and shape, which ultimately determine how a species interacts with its environment. Reconstruction of body size and form in extinct animals provides insight into the dynamics underlying comm...
The Peruvian Province, from 6° S in Peru to 42° S in Chile, is a highly productive coastal marine region whose biology and fossil record have long been studied separately but never integrated. To understand how past events and conditions affected today's species composition and interactions, we examined the role of extinction, colonization, geologi...
Several dolphin lineages have independently invaded freshwater systems. Among these, the evolution of the South Asian river dolphin Platanista and its relatives (Platanistidae) remains virtually unknown as fossils are scarce. Here, we describe Pebanista yacuruna gen. et sp. nov., a dolphin from the Miocene proto-Amazonia of Peru, recovered in phylo...
The La Venta deposits (Colombia) record one of the most fossil-rich regions in tropical South America and offers an exceptional opportunity to study the effect of the Miocene climatic changes and the evolution of extinct and extant clades in a low-latitude ecosystem. Land and freshwater vertebrates, and less commonly plants and invertebrates, const...
Anurans are one of the most diverse vertebrate groups, particularly in Amazonia, where species richness exceeds that of anywhere else. Amazonian frogs belong to three main lineages (Hyloidea, Microhylidae and Pipidae), each of which diversified during the Cenozoic. However, due to the virtual absence of an anuran fossil record in that area, the evo...
The present 3D Dataset contains the 3D models analyzed in Bianucci et al. 2023, A heavyweight early whale pushes the boundaries of vertebrate morphology, Nature. These include bones of the holotype of new species Perucetus colossus (MUSM 3248), as well as the articulated skeleton of Cynthiacetus peruvianus (holotype, MNHN.F.PRU10). The latter was u...
The Humboldt Current System along the Pacific coast of South America creates one of the most productive ecosystems on Earth. To trace the origin of the water masses in this area, we measured neodymium isotope compositions (ԑNd) in tooth enameloid of two genera of coastal sharks from latest Oligocene to early Pleistocene strata in the Pisco and Saca...
We present a reconstruction of human demography and shell fishing activity in the Sine-Saloum mangrove Delta (Senegal) in the past 6000 years using the summed probability density (SPD) of radiocarbon dates in archaeological shell middens. We explore how this local history relates to the climatic and political history of West Africa. We find that tr...
This research assessed carbon and nutrient burial during the past ~60 years within a Peruvian coastal marsh ecosystem affected by anthropogenic activities, by examining total organic carbon (TOC), total nitrogen (TN) and isotopes (δ 13 C and δ 15 N) tracers in two dated sediment cores. Significantly higher TOC and TN burial, up to 416.4 ± 65.0 and...
Currently, marsupials (modern members of the Metatheria clade) are widely distributed in tropical and subtropical areas of South America, but poorly represented in the fossil record of these regions. Except for the species-rich fossiliferous localities of La Venta in Colombia, additional Miocene metatherians from tropical, equatorial South America...
Over the last decades, rocks from the East Pisco Basin (EPB), on the Central Peruvian coast (13°-16°S), have yielded an abundant and diverse collection of coastal-marine fossils, which are key for characterizing the onset and evolution of the modern Humboldt Current. Despite its paleontological richness, and after almost 40 years of study, the spat...
The file includes character list, character x taxon matrix, data about mandibular measurements and paleobiogeographic analysis of the paper on Archaebalaenoptera eusebioi.
Archaebalaenoptera eusebioi is a new late Miocene (Tortonian) balaenopterid species from the Aguada de Lomas locality in the Pisco Formation, Peru. It is dated to 8.85–7.93 Ma and is represented by a nearly complete skull with cervical vertebrae. Its inferred body length and mass are respectively c. 7 m and 7–11 tonnes. Archaebalaenoptera eusebioi...
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1007/s00531-021-02003-1.].
Diversity and distribution of extant crocodylians is, with just over 25 species, quite depleted, with many species being prone to extinction and showing restricted and/or fragmented habitats. Considering the whole of crown-group Crocodylia including the extinct closest relatives of alligators, caimans, crocodiles and gharials, a different, more div...
Miocene deposits of South America have yielded several species-rich assemblages of caviomorph rodents. They are mostly situated at high and mid- latitudes of the continent, except for the exceptional Honda Group of La Venta, Colombia, the faunal composition of which allowed to describe the late middle Miocene Laventan South American Land Mammal Age...
Lack of constraint on spatial and long-term temporal variability of the El Niño southern Oscillation (ENSO) and its sensitivity to external forcing limit our ability to evaluate climate models and ENSO future projections. Current knowledge of Holocene ENSO variability derived from paleoclimate reconstructions does not separate the role of insolatio...
The Paleogene record of caviomorph rodents has substantially increased over the last decades, and their evolutionary history better understood by the discovery of their earliest representatives, so far recorded in several pre-Deseadan localities in Peruvian Amazonia. We report here the discovery of new caviomorph fossils from the Balsayacu area in...
Since 2012, we have investigated a stratigraphic section encompassing the late Eocene–earliest Oligocene interval at Shapaja (Tarapoto area, Peruvian Amazonia, ca. 7°S), through paleontological and geological fieldwork. The measured sedimentary series (120 m-thick [West] plus 90 m-thick [East]), assigned to the upper member of the Pozo Formation, r...
Pathologies in skeletal remains have been instrumental to decipher the ecology and life history of extinct taxa, but this distinct fossil evidence was barely documented within marine vertebrate communities of the Cenozoic. Here, we present the first record of pathological bones in marine vertebrates recovered from five localities (9-~4.5 million ye...
The highly productive waters of the Humboldt Current System (HCS) host a particular temperate ecosystem within the tropics, whose history is still largely unknown. The Pisco Formation, deposited during Mio-Pliocene times in the Peruvian continental margin has yielded an outstanding collection of coastal-marine fossils, providing an opportunity to u...
Facial compartmentalization in the skull of extant pygmy whales (Kogiidae) is a unique feature among cetaceans that allows for the housing of a wide array of organs responsible for echolocation. Recent fossil findings indicate a remarkable disparity of the facial bone organization in Miocene kogiids, but the significance of such a rearrangement for...
The Peruvian coast experiences the largest interannual variability of sea surface temperature in the world due to the combined influence of the coastal upwelling and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Although biological impacts of El Niño events have been widely reported, their effects on rocky intertidal communities remains largely unknown in P...
The oldest record of a carnivoran mammal in South America corresponds to the extinct procyonid Cyonasua (late Miocene-early Pleistocene). Up to now, this genus was recorded in Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, and Venezuela. In this contribution, we report the first occurrence of Cyonasua in the Pacific coast of Peru, recovered from the late Miocene mar...
Significance
Closed-canopy rainforests are important for climate and ecology, yet identifying this ecosystem in the fossil record is challenging. An existing paradigm for identification of closed-canopy rainforests using fossil mammal carbon isotope data is the presence of highly negative δ ¹³ C diet values (<−31‰) in the herbivore community, as ob...
Electronic Supplementary Material - Text S1
The Honda Group of La Venta, Colombia, has yielded a wide array of crown platyrrhine primates, documenting the late Middle Miocene epoch (ca. 12-13 Ma, Laventan SALMA). Although exceptional, this record represents only a snapshot of the evolutionary history of New World monkeys since none of the primate taxa recorded at La Venta had so far been fou...
The modern pygmy and dwarf sperm whales (Physeteroidea, Kogiidae) are remnants of a highly diverse group, which flourished in the Miocene oceans. Unlike their modern suction-feeding, deep-diving relatives, the past diversity of this family includes animals with disparate ecological habits. Here, we describe Scaphokogia totajpe, sp. nov., a new spec...
On the 17 extant subfamilies of ants, Dolichoderinae is one of the four major species-rich clades (with Formicinae, Ponerinae, and Myrmicinae), and a cosmopolitan group including some of the world’s most invasive species such as the Argentine ant and white-footed ant. It comprises currently 846 species in 28 extant and 20 extinct genera (Bolton, 20...
During the late Miocene, the Andean–Amazonian region experienced drastic climatic and environmental changes, notably due to a major phase in the Andean uplift. The fossil record is virtually undocumented for this period in the Subandean Zone, where very few palaeoenvironmental and palaeontological investigations have been undertaken. Here, we descr...
Paleogene deposits of Peruvian Amazonia have yielded the oldest caviomorph rodent communities from South America, and the clues that their early diversification had occurred in this area. Here we report fossil dental remains of rodents from two new sections located in the vicinity of Juanjui and Balsayacu (San Martín Department, Peruvian Amazonia)....
We investigate the enamel microstructure of 37 isolated rodent incisors from several late middle Eocene and late Oligocene localities of Contamana (Loreto Department, Peruvian Amazonia), and from the early Oligocene TAR-01 locality (Shapaja, San Martín Department, Peruvian Amazonia). All incisors show an enamel internal portion with multiserial Hun...
Piscogavialis jugaliperforatus is a marine crocodile species from the late Miocene-early Pliocene (5.8 to 5 million years ago) that lived in a coastal environment. It possessed an elongated gavial-type skull with unsawed thin conical teeth for fish feeding. The first specimen was found in 1998 in the Pisco formation of the sandstone Sacaco basin, P...
The living tree sloths Choloepus and Bradypus are the only remaining members of Folivora, a major xenarthran radiation that occupied a wide range of habitats in many parts of the western hemisphere during the Cenozoic, including both continents and the West Indies. Ancient DNA evidence has played only a minor role in folivoran systematics, as most...
We report here a new record of the giant caviomorph Phoberomys corresponding to a fragmentary mandible from the Monte Salvado area, Peruvian Amazonia (Madre de Dios Department). We describe this specimen and compare it with the material previously attributed to Phoberomys. The mandibular fragment is referred to as Phoberomys sp. Found as float on a...
Cetaceans originated in south Asia more than 50 million years ago (mya), from a small quadrupedal artiodactyl ancestor [1-3]. Amphibious whales gradually dispersed westward along North Africa and arrived in North America before 41.2 mya [4]. However, fossil evidence on when, through which pathway, and under which locomotion abilities these early wh...
This contribution contains the 3D model of the fossil talus of a small-bodied anthropoid primate (Platyrrhini, Cebidae, Cebinae) discovered from lower Miocene deposits of Peruvian Amazonia (MD-61 locality, Upper Madre de Dios Basin). This fossil was described and figured in the following publication: Marivaux et al. (2012), A platyrrhine talus from...
A wide variety of aquatic vertebrates from fluvio-lacustrine facies of northern South America (Colombia and Venezuela) have been used as unequivocal evidence to support hydrographic connections between western Amazonia and the Proto-Caribbean Sea during the Miocene. By the end of the Miocene, changes in the major hydrographic systems of the region...
Actualmente la paleohistología es usada para efectuar diferentes tipos de inferencias paleobiológicas tales como: el estudio de tasas de crecimiento en los vertebrados, adaptaciones acuáticas de los huesos (ej. paquiostosis), desarrollo y efectos de patologías, etc. En este artículo se presentan los primeros resultados sobre la implementación de pr...
In rodents, and other vertebrates in general, the morphology of tarsal bones, especially the astragalus and calcaneus, has been shown to be tightly linked to locomotor movements. As a result, it has been used to infer locomotor behaviors in extinct species. Recent expeditions in Peruvian Amazonia have led to the discovery of the oldest caviomorph r...
The rodent record during the late Eocene‒early Oligocene interval is poorly known in South America. Our team’s recent fieldwork in Peruvian Amazonia allowed for the discovery of five new fossil-bearing localities in a single stratigraphic section at Shapaja (Tarapoto area, San Martín Department), considered as early Oligocene by mammalian biostrati...
Carbon isotopic signatures recorded in vertebrate tissues derive from ingested food and thus reflect ecologies and ecosystems. For almost two decades, most carbon isotope-based ecological interpretations of extant and extinct herbivorous mammals have used a single diet–bioapatite enrichment value (14‰). Assuming this single value applies to all her...
ESM for 'Body mass predicts isotope enrichment in herbivorous mammals' by Julia Tejada et al.
Among the ichthyofaunal remains collected in the Tertiary deposits of Peruvian Amazonia, elasmobranchs show an unexpected richness of rays, consisting primarily of mostly potamotrygonins (river stingrays), but also pristids (sawfishes) and rhinopterids (cownose rays). Among the Potamotrygoninae subfamily and in addition to the middle Eocene Potamot...
This contribution contains the 3D models of the isolated teeth of Canaanimico amazonensis, a new stem
platyrrhine primate, described and figured in the following publication: Marivaux et al. (2016), Neotropics provide
insights into the emergence of New World monkeys: new dental evidence from the late Oligocene of Peruvian
Amazonia. Journal of Human...
This contribution contains the 3D models of the isolated teeth attributed to stem representatives of the Cebuella and Cebus lineages (Cebuella sp. and Cebus sp.), described and figured in the following publication: Marivaux et al. (2016), Dental remains of cebid platyrrhines from the earliest late Miocene of Western Amazonia, Peru: macroevolutionar...
We describe claw fragments of fossil primary freshwater crabs from three areas in the Amazon
basin, Tarapoto (Early Oligocene) and Contamana (Middle Eocene to early Late Miocene) in Peru,
and Eirunepé (Late Miocene) in Brazil. All these fragments most likely belong to the family
Trichodactylidae. We show a continuous presence of primary freshwater...
Although combined molecular and morphological analyses point to a late middle Eocene (38-39 million years ago) origin for the clade Neoceti (Odontoceti, echolocating toothed whales plus Mysticeti, baleen whales, and relatives), the oldest known mysticete fossil dates from the latest Eocene (about 34 million years ago) of Antarctica [1, 2]. Consider...
Caviomorph rodents represent one of the most successful groups of placental mammals from South America. Despite their modern, Neogene and late Paleogene high diversity, their early evolutionary history has long remained obscure. Recent field expeditions in Peruvian Amazonia have yielded among the earliest representatives of that group, in deposits...
A state-of-the-art review of the Cenozoic fossil record from Western Amazonia is provided, based on literature and new data (regarding Paleogene native ungulates). It allows summarizing the evolution and dynamics of middle Eocene–Holocene mammalian guilds, at the level of species, families, and orders. Major gaps in the Western Amazonian mammal rec...