Charles S. Churcher

Spatial Response of Mammals to Late Quaternary Environmental Fluctuations

Analyses of fossil mammal faunas from 2945 localities in the United States demonstrate that the geographic ranges of individual species shifted at different times, in different directions, and at different rates in response to late Quaternary environmental fluctuations. The geographic pattern of faunal provinces was similar for the late Pleistocene and late Holocene, but differing environmental gradients resulted in dissimilar species composition for these biogeographic regions. Modern community patterns emerged only in the last few thousand years, and many late Pleistocene communities do not have modern analogs. Faunal heterogeneity was greater in the late Pleistocene.

Faunal remains from a Middle Pleistocene lacustrine marl in Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt: palaeoenvironmental reconstructions

Abstract Vertebrates and invertebrates associated with lithic artifacts are reported from a later middle Pleistocene horizon in Dakhleh Oasis, probably dating to isotope stage 7. This represents the first middle Pleistocene fauna of this stage from a site in the Egyptian Western Desert and demonstrates the presence of extensive permanent lakes along the margin of the Libyan Escarpment. The fauna includes two freshwater snails (Limnaea stagnalis, Planorbis planorbis), a catfish (Clarias sp.), two reptiles (Varanus cf. griseus, ?Trionyx sp.), four water birds (Grus grus, Anas platyrhynchos, Anas sp. small, Arenaria interpres) and one land bird (Struthio camelus), and probably eleven mammals (Phacochoerus aethiopicus, Hippopotamus amphibius, Camelus ?thomasi, Pelorovis antiquus, ?Damaliscus, large antelope, Gazella sp. large, Gazella cf. dorcas, small antelope, Equus capensis, and possibly Hyaena hyaena). Most of the fossils derive from a near shore marl deposit in a freshwater lake that occupied a depression whose northern boundary coincides with the present southern margin of the oasis in its eastern end. Casts of the stems of reeds are also present. The animals represent a proximal freshwater tied fauna of obligatory aquatics and those who require freshwater during much of their activity, a distal savanna fauna of grazers, browsers or rooters who migrate to water on a diurnal cycle, and probable transitory avian migrants attracted to the palaeolake in passage. Human presence is attested by flakes and bifaces found in situ.

A new species of Protopterus and a revision of Ceratodus humei (Dipnoi: Ceratodontiformes) from the Late Cretaceous Mut Formation of eastern Dakhleh Oasis, Western Desert of Egypt

Three lungfish species are recognized from tooth plates recovered from shales of the Mut Formation (Qusseir Group) in eastern Dakhleh Oasis. Ceratodus humei Priem, 1914 is identified on characters shared with the type specimen, and Neoceratodus africanus Haug, 1905 on characters shared with the type specimen and specimens assigned to this species by subsequent authors. Protopterus crassidens sp. nov. is represented by two recently found plates, as well as two plates previously considered to represent Ceratodus or Protopterus humei. These plates all bear three ridges and crests, unusually heavy mesial ridges, crushing bollard-like buccal cusps to the mesial ridges and thick, robust buccal margins. The status and characteristics of C. humei are reviewed and the general problems of interspecific variation of fossil lungfish tooth plates and species recognition based on tooth plates are discussed. The diagnosis of C. humei is revised and the species returned to its original generic assignment, based mainly on the broad sample of tooth plates from Dakhleh Oasis. This sample demonstrates that many tooth plates assigned to this species subsequent to its original description do not belong within C. humei. New specimens of N. africanus are described from Bahariya Oasis.

Fossil Canis from the tar pits of La Brea, Peru.

New fossil material has been obtained from La Brea, Peru. Included in this material are remains of a large wolflike canid which could not be referred to any living or fossil South American canine genus. Comparison with fossil canids from Rancho La Brea, Calif., shows that it closely resembles Canis (Aenocyon) dirus Leidy.

A vacant niche? The curious distributions of African Perissodactyla

Why are there no perissodactyls in sub-Saharan West Africa? There are no records of hipparions or zebras in that region and records of rhinoceroses are peripheral and sparse. Absence of records is not information of absence. More than a century of palaeontological and archaeozoological research has yielded thousands of skeletal specimens of late Tertiary or Quaternary mammals throughout most of Africa with equid and rhinocerotid specimens well represented from North, East and South Africa, but not saharan, sahelian or soudanian West Africa. This paper explores the evidence of this absence but offers no solution.

Distribution and history of the Cape zebra (Equus capensis) in the Quarternary of Africa : palaeoecology

The extinct Cape zebra (Equus cupensis Broom) was first described from the Cape Town region of South Africa in 1909. Subsequent materials were reported from the hinterland of the Cape and into the Orange Free State, with records from Zimbabwe and Zambia, and 18 species were named. These were synonymised with the type binomial. Populations similar to the Cape zebra were described in East Africa as E. oldowayensis. Recently, specimens, also referable to the Cape zebra, have been recovered from Late Pleistocene and Holocene deposits in Dakhleh Oasis, Egypt, northwest Africa. The known temporal range of these Cape zebra populations is from Late Pliocene in East and South Africa and from Late Pleistocene in Egypt, to Middle Holocene in northeast and South Africa, and to Recent in northern Kenya, southern Ethiopia and the northeast of southern Somalia where it is represented by the extant E. grevyi, Grevys zebra. The occlusal patterns of the lower cheek teeth (P3-M2) of the South African type, and individuals from the Ethiopian Omo Member G and the Egyptian Dakhleh Oasis Holocene pan silts are shown to be sufficiently similar to be considered to be conspecific within a single population.

Kom Ombo: Preliminary Report on the Fauna of Late Paleolithic Sites in Upper Egypt

A Late Pleistocene fauna comprising 3 fish, 1 reptile, 22 birds, and 14 mammals is identified from sites containing Sebilian, Sebekian, Silsilian, Menchian, and Halfan industries. It is remarkable for its variety, especially of birds, and gives evidence for year-round occupation of these sites.