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- Title
Pegadas de vertebrados nos eolianitos do Plistocénico Superior do Sudoeste Alentejano, Portugal.
- Authors
de Carvalho, C. Neto
- Abstract
Pleistocene carbonate eolianites crop out along the Portuguese Atlantic coast in several areas distributed between latitudes 30º03'N (archipelago of Selvagens) and 41º54'N (North of Portugal). More continuous outcrops are found at the SW coast of Portugal, being the Late Pleistocene Malhão Dune Field the only one that held vertebrate trace fossils. This study describes the paleoichnology of the Malhão Dune Field where at least 14 stratigraphic horizons with mammal and bird footprints and trackways were found and the first vertebrate tracksites from all the Cenozoic from Portugal were previously reported. Tracks of birds ascribed to Gruipeda maxima, as well as small and large mammals tracks and footprints attributed to Leporidichnites malhaoi, Bifidipes isp., Bestiopeda isp. and Proboscipeda panfamilia are described and discussed according to new findings and comparison with global bibliographical compilations recently published. These tracksites are dated from OIS6?- OIS3, mostly Late Pleistocene. Among those footprints, elephant tracks are particularly important. Concave epirelief footprints show 3 foot-off toe imprints and heteropody in a narrow gauge. The presence of at least three parallel trackways and a new trampling site points to gregarious behavior attributed to Elephas antiquus. The ichnospecies Proboscipeda panfamilia, found in Malhão and Pessegueiro sectors, is the first record of elephant footprints in the Pleistocene of continental Europe and represent some of the latest occurrences of Elephas antiquus in Portugal, before final extinction in Europe, with the migration of herds across Malhão Dune Field some 35000 years ago. Tracks of hare may be also unique for the fossil record. New data enable to detail further the importance of this track record for the changing of the community dynamics in the transition for the Last Glacial.
- Subjects
ALENTEJO (Portugal); PORTUGAL; FOSSIL vertebrates; TRACE fossils; FOSSIL tracks; BIRD migration; BIRD behavior
- Publication
Comunicaçõe Geológicas, 2011, Vol 98, Issue 8, p99
- ISSN
0873-948X
- Publication type
Article