Late Cretaceous vertebrate fauna from Cauvery Basin, South India

[Ben Creisler <bcreisler@gmail.com>]

From: Ben Creisler
bcreisler@gmail.com


A paper in the new JVP:


Guntupalli V. R. Prasad, Omkar Verma, John J. Flynn & Anjali Goswami (2013)
A new Late Cretaceous vertebrate fauna from the Cauvery Basin, South
India: implications for Gondwanan paleobiogeography.
Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 33 (6):  1260-1268
DOI: 10.1080/02724634.2013.777348
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2013.777348#.UoJUM_k_sbk

Late Cretaceous vertebrate faunas of India are known predominantly
from intertrappean deposits in the Deccan volcanic province of the
central and western parts of the country. A thick and nearly
continuous sequence of Early Cretaceous–Early Paleocene fossiliferous
sediments exposed in the Cauvery Basin of South India has been
comparatively poorly explored. Here, we present a preliminary
description of a new fauna consisting of vertebrate fossils discovered
from the continental Upper Cretaceous (late Maastrichtian) Kallamedu
Formation. The Kallamedu Fauna includes ganoid fishes, amphibians,
turtles, crocodiles, and dinosaurs, with many taxa suggesting Late
Cretaceous biotic links between India and other Gondwanan landmasses.
Teeth of abelisaurid dinosaurs, known previously from the Middle
Jurassic of South America and the Late Cretaceous of Africa,
Madagascar, and central and western India, support a pan-Gondwanan
distribution for this group of theropod dinosaurs. Of greatest
significance, however, is the first discovery of a Simosuchus-like
notosuchian crocodile outside of Madagascar. This report of the first
Indian Simosuchus-like notosuchian crocodile further strengthens
earlier evidence from other vertebrate groups for close biotic links
between India and Madagascar in the Late Cretaceous, most likely
through dispersal via the Seychelles block, Amirante Ridge, and
Providence Bank.