Middle Triassic tetrapod footprints of southern South America

In South America, tetrapod footprints of Middle Triassic age were only described from the Cuyana (Cerro de las Cabras Formation) and Ischigualasto-Villa Unión (Los Rastros Formation) basins in west-central Argentina. They are scarce and remain mostly undescribed. Their significance and the putative...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Marsicano, Claudia Alicia, Arcucci, Andrea Beatriz, Mancuso, Adriana Cecilia, Caselli, Alberto Tomás
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2004
País:Argentina
Institución:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repositorio:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/93667
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/93667
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Tetrapod footprints
Triassic
Cuyana Basin
Argentina
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.5
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1
Descripción
Sumario:In South America, tetrapod footprints of Middle Triassic age were only described from the Cuyana (Cerro de las Cabras Formation) and Ischigualasto-Villa Unión (Los Rastros Formation) basins in west-central Argentina. They are scarce and remain mostly undescribed. Their significance and the putative trackmakers are identified and discussed within a phylogenetic context in the present contribution. Several groups of tetrapods are suggested to be represented, as non-mammalian therapsids, crurotarsal archosaurs and putative dinosaurs. The presence of crurotarsal archosaurs and non-mammalian therapsids in Cerro de las Cabras Formation suggests a tetrapod fauna more diverse than that documented by the known body fossil record. The ichnites described from the Los Rastros Formation are, until now, the only evidence of amniotes in the Ischigualasto-Villa Unión Basin during the deposition of these levels. They indicate the presence of putative dinosaurs, crurotarsal archosaurs and non-mammalian therapsids, which are already well represented in the rest of the sequence by skeletal remains.