Megafauna : Giant Beasts of Pleistocene South America

457 Pages·2013·29.61 MB·English

by  Fariña

Megafauna
Life of the Past James O. Farlow, editor
Indiana University Press Bloomington & Indianapolis
M e g a f a u n a
giant BeaStS oF PleiStocene South ameRica
RichaRd a . FaRiña
SeRgio F. Vizcaíno
geRRy de iuliiS
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Orders by e-mail [email protected] Megafauna : giant beasts of Pleistocene South
America / Richard A. Fariña, Sergio F. Vizcaíno,
© 2013 by Richard A. Fariña, Sergio F. Vizcaíno, and Gerry De Iuliis.
and Gerardo De Iuliis p. cm. — (Life of the past)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
All rights reserved ISBN 978-0-253-00230-3 (cloth : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978-0-253-00719-3 (eb)
No part of this book may be reproduced or 1. Mammals, Fossil—South America.
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic 2. Paleobiology—South America. 3. Geology,
or mechanical, including photocopying and Stratigraphic—Pleistocene. I. Fariña, Richard
recording, or by any information storage A. II. Vizcaíno, Sergio F. III. De Iuliis, Gerardo,
and retrieval system, without permission in [date]
writing from the publisher. The Association QE881.M475 2012
of American University Presses’ Resolution on 569.098—dc23
Permissions constitutes the only exception to 2012017801
this prohibition.
1 2 3 4 5 17 16 15 14 13
To past and current researchers of South American fossil mammals.
Those of the past are an endless source of inspiration,
those still current of intellectual motivation.
To the memory of Mirta Tosar, my mother,
who taught me to be bold and love animals as a person,
and to Neill Alexander, who encouraged me in the same way as a scientist.
R.A.F.
To the memory of my parents, Eric and “Negra,”
who instilled in me the value of hard work and honesty.
To Susi, Rulo, Leo, Tano, Guille, and Nestor,
the people with whom I share every day the joy of doing this job.
S.F.V.
To my family and the memory of my father and father-in-law,
whose sacrifices allowed me the luxury of doing what I love.
To Charles “Rufus” Churcher,
who instilled in me the intellectual discipline to carry it out.
G.D.I.
The number of the remains embedded in the grand estuary deposit which
forms the Pampas and covers the granitic rocks of Banda Oriental, must
be extraordinarily great. I believe a straight line drawn in any direction
through the Pampas would cut through some skeleton or bones. Besides
those which I found during my short excursions, I heard of many others,
and the origin of such names as “the stream of the animal,” “the hill of
the giant,” is obvious. At other times I heard of the marvellous property of
certain rivers, which had the power of changing small bones into large; or,
as some maintained, the bones themselves grew. As far as I am aware, not
one of these animals perished, as was formerly supposed, in the marshes or
muddy river-beds of the present land, but their bones have been exposed
by the streams intersecting the subaqueous deposit in which they were
originally embedded. We may conclude that the whole area of the Pampas
is one wide sepulchre of these extinct gigantic quadrupeds.
Charles R. Darwin, November 26, 1833
Contents C
Preface & Acknowledgments > ix >
1 Paleontology and Science: What Is Science? > 3 >
2 Distinguished Paleomammalogists > 31 >
3 Geological and Ecological History of South America > 73 >
during the Cenozoic Era
4 North American Late Cenozoic Faunas > 103 >
5 The Great American Biotic Interchange and > 135 >
Pleistocene Habitats in South America
6 Bestiary > 171 >
7 Physics of the Giants > 235 >
8 General Paleoecology > 275 >
9 Extinction > 317 >
Epilogue. Lessons from the Deep Past > 351 >
Appendix 1. A Primer on Skeletal Anatomy > 355 >
Appendix 2. Skeletal Anatomy of Xenarthrans > 383 >
Appendix 3. Equations Used to Estimate Body Masses Based on Dental > 393 >
and Skeletal Measurements and Their Respective Sources
Appendix 4. Calculations > 397 >
References > 401 >
Index > 423 >

Preface & acknowledgments P
The first reports, during the late 1700s and early 1800s, of the fossil remains
of South America’s magnificent Pleistocene beasts, so fantastically bizarre,
immediately caused a stir among the general public and, in particular,
the European scientific community. The first notices of their discovery
described them as monsters, firing the imagination and interest of several
eminent scientists and politicians, and leading some of them to believe
that these great beasts still wandered among the unknown (for Europeans,
at any rate) reaches of the New World. The fossils helped usher in a new
episode among the fledgling nations of both South and North America,
striving then for recognition and validation in the eyes of the established
European powers: finally they had something of their own that rivaled the
great treasures of the Old World. Eventually, the fossils contributed signifi-
cantly to the establishment of new scientific institutions and traditions as
the New World countries took hold of their destinies and exploration of
their territories.
The fossil mammals of both North and South America began to reveal
an unimagined chapter in the history of mammals, based as it then was
mainly on knowledge unearthed from European deposits, but it was those
from South America that were most strikingly different and garnered much
of the early attention. Perhaps because of this distinctness, largely as a result
of the long, past isolation of South America from other continental land-
masses, they played crucial roles in the development of modern biological
thought. We may note as examples of their scientific achievements that a
South American fossil mammal (Megatherium americanum, a giant fossil
sloth) was the first fossil to be formally described and named scientifically,
and its skeleton was the first to be mounted in a lifelike pose. The sharp
mind of Georges Cuvier, the great French comparative anatomist, forged
the concept of extinction (in the modern sense of this word) based on
this fossil sloth (as well as on North and South American remains of fossil
elephant relatives). Perhaps most significantly, it was the giant sloths, the
giant armadillo-like glyptodonts, and the majestic and ponderous toxodonts
(among other South American fossil remains) that struck most fervently
upon the fertile mind of the young Charles Darwin, both during and after
his famous voyage aboard the HMS Beagle, as he worked out his ideas on
evolutionary theory.
Despite the relative isolation of the new South American countries,
these ideas greatly affected scientists and intellectuals on both sides of
the Río de la Plata, several of whom (such as the Ameghinos) took on the
void created by Darwin’s return to England and restarted the study of the
South American fossil mammals with renewed enthusiasm. Such was
ix