Vertebrate palaeontology of Australasia

1460 Pages·1991·101.9 MB·English

by  Rich, Pat Vickers

VERTEBRATE
PALAEONTOLOGY
OF AUSTRALASIA
Editors
P. V ICKERS-RICH, J.M. MONAGHAN
R.F. B AIRD & T.H. RICH
With the assistance of
E.M. Thompson & C. Williams

VERTEBRATE
PALAEONTOLOGY
OF AUSTRALASIA
Editors
P. VICKERS-RICH, J.M.MONAGHAN,
R.F. BAJRD & T.H.RICH
With the assistance of
E.M.Thompson & C.Williams
Graphics by D. Gelt
Photography by S. Morton & F. Coffa
Pioneer Design Studio
in cooperation with the
Monash University Publications Committee, Melbourne
First published in 1991 by
Pioneer Design Studio Pty Ltd
486 Maroondah Highway, Lilydale, Victoria, 3140
for and in co-operation with the
Monash University Publications Committee, Melbourne
©P. Vicers-Rich 1991
Typeset in Australia
Printed and bound in Singapore
ISBN 0 909674 36 1
Reprinted 1991
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
Geologic Time Scale reproduced on page xv from:
Harland, W. B., Armstrong, R. L., Cox, A.V., Craig, L. E., Smith, A. G., & Smith, D. G. 1989.
A Geologic Time Scale. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge.
PREFACE
In 1982 publication of this volume's predecessor, The Fossil Vertebrate Record of
Australasia, was a milestone. That book provided a remarkably valuable reference for
palaeontologists and biologists who have an interest in the evolution of vertebrates in
Australasia. The dog-eared covers and almost fatally broken spine of my copy provide clear
evidence of the many times it has been consulted by me and my colleagues.
The central theme of this new volume, Australasian vertebrate palaeontology, is the same
as that of its predecessor, but the interpretations of the theme are richer and more diverse and
the cast of authors has been enhanced. As the historical accounts opening this book vividly
relate, the origins of the current, expanding activity in Australasian vertebrate palaeontology are
complex, but two figures loom large. The scientific contributions and contagious enthusiasm
of Profs. W.D.L. Ride and R.A. Stirton played a major role. Many of the chapters in The
Fossil Vertebrate Record of A ustralasia were authored by David's and S t in's students. In this
new volume we find abundant evidence that not only does this "mob" continue to be active, but
now they are being joined by the next generation including their students as well as
palaeontologists with other academic backgrounds.
The fossil record of Australasia cannot be faulted for limitations in temporal range. Its
oldest records include the Ediacaran fauna that documents the diversity of invertebrate life in the
seas of the later Precambrian. The first traces of vertebrates are specimens of agnathan fishes of
Middle Ordovician age. Footprints on an Early Devonian sandy river bank in eastern Australia
illustrate the evolutionary emergence of tetrapods long before that group is known from
skeletal remains. Other occurrences of fossil vertebrates, analyzed with equal insight in this
volume, provide us with glimpses of the subsequent evolution of vertebrates in Australasia.
However, it r esembles a cheap grade of Swiss Cheese -- one with greater voids than substance;
the fossil record available for study is disfigured by "ghastly blanks".
These blanks in the fossil record remain vexatious, but each year they shrink in number and
duration. Long days spent by the authors and their colleagues in the quiet of the Outback to
the west of the Birdsville Track, following the ebb and flow of the tides to recover fossils from
rocks in sea cliffs, as well as in other areas of the continent are paying off in generous
dividends. Their updated versions of compilations of basic data on fossil localities are starting
points for future research. Many acknowledgements of personal communications from other
palaeontologists, or to works in press, are a promising measure of the information that soon
will appear in scientific publications.
Although any assessment of the status of Australasian vertebrate palaeontology must
account for changes in the research data base and the cast of researchers, of greater significance
is the development of the research questions that are being addressed. Palaeontologists are far
from bashful in posing questions concerning the nature of the mechanism and causal factors
that have directed the course of vertebrate evolution. It's easily as healthy a cottage industry as
the generation of speculations about what killed off the dinosaurs. The chapters in this volume
show that an impressive array of palaeobiological questions are being successfully addressed in
research on Australasian vertebrates.
Early workers, Lamarck, Owen, and other 19th Century biologists, recognized that the
unique character of the Australasian fauna reflected the much later survival of many groups in
this area than on other continents. In his influential book, Climate and Evolution, William
Diller Matthew argued that the terrestrial vertebrate faunas of Australia and other southern
continents had their origins in stocks that evolved in Holarctica and then were displaced
southward by their descendants. Many years later Philip Hershkovitz dubbed this pattern the
"Sherwin-Williams effect," a reference to that paint company's advertising symbol depicting a
can of paint being poured over a globe. Further, in the context of a stablist view of continental
positions, Matthew considered and rejected the possibility that the occurrence of closely related
mammals or other members of the terrestrial faunas of Australia and South America reflected
interchange across Antarctica.
Understanding of the changes in positions of continents, patterns of circulation of the
oceans, currents, and continental climates through the course of earth history continues to
expand. The following studies show that during the late Palaeozoic and early Mesozoic
Australasia formed the tip of the southern peninsula of Pangaea; dispersal of vertebrates across
this globally continuous supercontinent appears to have been little impeded. Later in the
Mesozoic changes in climate regimes left Australasia partially cloistered biogeographically by
the high latitude environments of South Polar Antarctica. During the late Mesozoic and early
Cainozoic shifts in continental position and climatic change increased Australasia's
biogeographic isolation and magnified its role as a haven for vicariantly isolated populations of
nlionretahgweasr dt h amt o hvaedm eonr t w o uflirds t bmeacionmtaei n eexdt i nictts iisno l tahtei o Nno r btuhte r tnh e nH e bmriosupghhetr e i.t i nAtuos t crlaolsaesri a 'psr o xcionmtiitnyu e odf
southeastern Asia, so increasing the probability of chance dispersal of birds, bats and, later, rats
and other terrestrial vertebrates.
Analyses of the evolution of Australasian biogeographic patterns have advanced beyond the
level of debates over the primacy of dispersal or vicariance. Informative studies presented in
this book reveal the complex interplay of these factors at continental and smaller scales as well
as the environmental consequences of changing global climates and the latitudinal position of
Australasia. Data on the avian and terrestrial vertebrate faunas of smaller islands of Australasia,
for example, have increased to a point where they are pertinent to testing and qualifying the
MacArthur-Wilson hypothesis of insular biogeography.
On a larger scale, additions to the available fossil record add substantially to an
interpretation of the biogeographic history of marsupials, my particular pets, which until
recently had fallen into disfavor. Recent discoveries strongly indicate that the "Sherwin-
Williams effect" probably accurately describes the origin of the group in the Northern
Hemisphere and its dispersal into South America, but not Australia. Dispersal of marsupials,
but not their eutherian contemporaries, across Antarctica to Australia, a possibility rejected by
W.D. Matthew, probably occurred very late in the Mesozoic or early in the Cainozoic. Then
vicariant isolation set the physical stage for an extensive evolutionary radiation of Australasian
marsupials. Further movement of the continent toward the Equator and southeastern Asia
increasingly opened the door to dispersal of plants and animals into Australasia that, in turn,
affected the course of evolution of its marsupial fauna.
Biogeographic analyses are only as strong as the understanding of the evolutionary
interrelationships of the organisms being studied. The authors show that taxonomic research
on Australasian vertebrates is being rapidly advanced on many fronts. Modern methods of
analysis of phylogenetic relationships are being applied to a widening spectrum of data.
Discoveries of members of new living and prehistoric species are yielding hitherto unknown
data. Biomolecular studies bringing new data from living and recently extinct lineages are
providing additional kinds of information for the taxonomic analyses. Inventive studies of
form and function of marsupial dentitions and avian egg shells add not only data for studies of
evolutionary interrelationships, but also provide a better appreciation of their ecological roles.
Additionally, taphonomic studies of the fossil assemblages refine interpretations of the
composition of the biotas from which they are drawn.
The modern terrestrial biota of Australasia, like those of many other continents, is in part
the product of late Pleistocene or Subrecent extinctions that decimated many lineages of large
vertebrates. The quality of the fossil record of Australasia surpasses that of other southern
continents and provides and opportunity to study another evolutionary "experiment" as climatic
change and human intervention had their impacts on such late Pleistocene and Subrecent biotas.
The authors of this volume have provided us with both a valuable standing ground and a
significant point whose pages soon will acquire the patina characteristic of oft-consulted
references. The contributions clearly illustrate the current, rapidly accelerating pace of
vertebrate palaeontological research in Australasia and document our colleagues' research
accomplishments. As a major reference work, it is destined to serve as a starting point for
many lines of future research.
W.A. Clemens
Berkeley, California
August 1990

CONTENTS
Preface v
Introduction xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Geologic Time Scale xv
BACKGROUND TO THE FOSSIL RECORD
1. Squatters, Priests and Professors: A Brief History of Vertebrate Palaeontology
in Terra Australis. P. Vickers-Rich & N. W. Archbold 1
2. Vertebrate Palaeontology in Australia: The American Contribution.
R. H.Tedford 45
3. Musings on New Guinea Fossil Vertebrate Discoveries. M. D. Plane 85
4. Palaeoclimatic Setting and Palaeogeographic Links of Australia in the
Phanerozoic. L. A. Frakes & P. Vickers-Rich 1 1 1
5. An Introduction to the Literature of Palaeontology with Reference to the Fossil
Vertebrates of Australasia. M. Chiba 147
TECHNIQUES AND ANALYSIS OF FOSSILS
6. Techniques Used in Preparation of Terrestrial Vertebrates. M. Whitelaw &
L. Kool 173
7. Predicting the Diet of Fossil Mammals. G.D.Sanson 201
8. The Diet of the Extinct Bandicoot Chaeropus ecaudatus. W. Wright,
G. D. Sanson & C. McArthur 229
9. Reconstructing the Natural History of Extinct Animals: Ektopodon as a Case
History. N. Pledge 247
10. The Taphonomy of Late Quaternary Cave Localities Yielding Vertebrate
Remains in Australia. R. F. Baird 267
11. Preservation of Biomolecular Information in Fossils from Australia.
M. Rowley 311
VERTEBRATE FOSSIL RECORD OF AUSTRALASIA
12. The Long History of Australian Fossil Fishes. J. A. Long 337
13. Palaeozoic Vertebrate Microfossils in Australia. S. Turner 429
14. Australian Mesozoic and Cainozoic Lungfish. A. Kemp 465
15. Chondrichthyans in the Cretaceous and Tertiary of Australia. N. R. Kemp 497
16. Australian Fossil Amphibians. A. Warren 569
17. Australian Fossil Frogs. M. J. Tyler 591
18. Fossil Reptiles in Australia. R. E. Molnar 605
19. The Fossil Turtles of Australia. E. S. Gaffney 703
20. The Mesozoic and Tertiary History of Birds on the Australian Plate.
P. Vickers-Rich 721
21. The Quaternary Avifauna of Australia. R. F. Baird 809
22. Fossil Eggs from the Tertiary and Quaternary of Australia. D. L. G. Williams
& P. Vickers-Rich 871
23. The History of Mammals in Terra Australis. T. H. Rich 893
24. The Pleistocene Megafauna of Australia. P. Murray 1071
25. The Australasian Marine Vertebrate Record and its Climatic and Geographic
Implications. R. E. Fordyce 1165
26. A New Look at the Fossil Vertebrate Record of New Zealand. R. E. Fordyce 1191
27. The Quaternary Avifauna of New Zealand. P. R. Millener 1317
28. Vertebrate Fossil Faunas from Islands in Australasia and the Southwest Pacific.
C.W.Meredith 1345
29. The Fossil Vertebrate Record of New Caledonia. J. C. Balouet 1383
Systematic, Geographic and Geologic Index 1411
Index 1419