First evidence for Wollemi Pine-type pollen (Dilwynites: Araucariaceae) in South America

We report the first fossil pollen from South America of the lineage that includes the recently discovered, extremely rare Australian Wollemi Pine, Wollemia nobilis (Araucariaceae). The grains are from the late Paleocene to early middle Eocene Ligorio Márquez Formation of Santa Cruz, Patagonia, Argentina, and are assigned to Dilwynites, the fossil pollen type that closely resembles the pollen of modern Wollemia and some species of its Australasian sister genus, Agathis. Dilwynites was formerly known only from Australia, New Zealand, and East Antarctica. The Patagonian Dilwynites occurs with several taxa of Podocarpaceae and a diverse range of cryptogams and angiosperms, but not Nothofagus. The fossils greatly extend the known geographic range of Dilwynites and provide important new evidence for the Antarctic region as an early Paleogene portal for biotic interchange between Australasia and South America.Mike Macphail, Raymond J. Carpenter, Ari Iglesias, Peter Wil

Stable isotope ecology of Miocene large mammals from Sandelzhausen, southern Germany

The carbon, oxygen, and strontium isotope composition of enamel from teeth of large Miocene herbivorous mammals from Sandelzhausen (MN5, late Early/early Middle Miocene) in the North Alpine foreland basin, were analyzed to infer diet and habitat. The mean enamel delta(13)C value of -11.4 +/- 1.0% (n = 53) for the nine taxa analyzed (including proboscideans, cervids, suids, chalicotheres, equids, rhinocerotids) indicates a pure C(3) plant diet for all mammals. (87)Sr/(86)Sr ratios of similar to 0.710 higher than those from teeth of the western Molasse Basin (0.708-0.709) seem to indicate preferential feeding of the mammals in the northeastern Molasse Basin. The sympatric herbivores have different mean delta(13)C and delta(18)O values which support diet partitioning and/or use of different habitats within a C(3) plant ecosystem. Especially the three sympatric rhinoceroses Plesiaceratherium fahlbuschi, Lartetotherium sansaniense, and Prosantorhinus germanicus show clear partitioning of plants and/or habitats. The palaeomerycid Germanomeryx fahlbuschi was a canopy folivore in moderately closed environments whereas Metaschizotherium bavaricum (Chalicotheriidae) and P. germanicus (Rhinocerotidae) were browsers in more closed forest environments. The horse Anchitherium aurelianense was probably a more generalized feeder than assumed from its dental morphology. The forest hog Hyotherium soemmeringi has the highest delta(13)C and lowest delta(18)O value of all analyzed taxa, possibly related to a frugivorous diet. Most taxa were water-dependent browsers that record meteoric water delta(18)O values of about -5.6 +/- 0.7% Vienna Standard Mean Ocean Water (VSMOW). Using a modern-day mean annual air temperature (MAT)-delta(18)OH(2)O relation a MAT of 19.3 +/- 1.5 degrees C can be reconstructed for Sandelzhausen. A Gomphotherium subtapiroideum tusk serially sampled for delta(18)O values does not record a clear pattern of seasonality. Thus most taxa were C(3) browsers in a forested and humid floodplain environment in the Molasse Basin, which experienced a warm-temperate to subtropical climate and possibly low seasonality