Stratigraphic paleobiology of an evolutionary radiation: taphonomy and facies distribution of cetaceans in the last 23 million years
Stefano Dominici¹, Simone Cau², Alessandro Freschi²
¹ Museo di Storia Naturale, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Firenze, Italy; stefano.dominici@unifi.it
² Dipartimento di Scienze Chimiche, della Vita e della Sostenibilità Ambientale, Università degli Studi di Parma, Parma, Italy; cau.simone2@gmail.com, freschiales@gmail.com
How to cite: Dominici et al. (2018). Stratigraphic paleobiology of an evolutionary radiation: taphonomy and facies
distribution of cetaceans in the last 23 million years. Fossilia, Volume 2018: 15-17. https://doi.org/10.32774/FosRepPal.20.1810.051517
Bullet-Points Abstract
- The majority of cetacean fossils are in Zanclean and Piacenzian deposits
- Cetacean fossils are preferentially found in offshore paleosettings
- Pleistocene findings drop to a minimum, notwithstanding offshore strata are well represented in the record
- A taphonomic imprinting on the cetacean fossil record is hypothesised, connected with a radiation of whale-bone consumers of modern type.
Keywords: Neogene; Pliocene; Cetaceans; Taphonomy.
Fig. 1. A, Distribution (%) of the findings (N = 255) per time interval, standardized for the duration of each time interval (N/Ma); B, Distribution of fossils (N = 131) and facies for time bin.
Cited References
- Berta A., Sumich J. & Kovacs K. (2015). Marine Mammals. 3rd Edition, Elsevier, 738 pp.
- Dominici S., Danise S. & Benvenuti M. (2018). Pliocene stratigraphic paleobiology in Tuscany and the fossil record of marine megafauna. Earth-Science Reviews, 176: 277–310.
- Freschi A. & Cau S. (2016). Distribuzione geografica dei cetacei fossili del Bacino Plio-pleistocenico di Castell’Arquato (Piacenza). Parva Naturalia, 11: 47–59.
- Freschi A., Cau S., Monegatti P. & Roveri M. (in press). Chronostratigraphic distribution of cetaceans in the Pliocene of Northern Apennines (Italy): palaeoecological implications.
- Marx G. M., Lambert O. & Uhen M. D. (2016). Cetacean Palaeobiology. Topics in Paleobiology, Wiley-Blackwell, 336 pp.
- Pimiento C., Griffin J. N., Clements C. F., Silvestro D., Varela S., Uhen M. D. & Jaramillo C. (2017). The Pliocene marine megafauna extinction and its impact on functional diversity. Nature ecology & evolution, 1 (8): 1100.
- Smith C. R., Glover A. G., Treude T., Higgs N. D., Amon D. J. (2015). Whale-fall ecosystems: recent insights into ecology, paleoecology, and evolution. Annual Review of Marine Science, 7: 571-596.
- Steeman M.E., Hebsgaad M.B., Fordyce R.E., Ho S.Y.W., Rabosky D.L., Nielsen R., Rahbek C., Glenner H., Sorensen M.V., & Willerslev E. (2009). Radiation of extant cetaceans driven by restructuring of the oceans. Systematic Biology, 58: 573-585.