We have selected and analysed the properties of a sample of 2905 Ks<21.5
galaxies in ~ 131 sq.arcmin of the Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey
(GOODS) Chandra Deep Field South (CDFS), to obtain further constraints on the
evolution of Ks-selected galaxies with respect to the results already obtained
in previous studies. We made use of the public deep multiwavelength imaging
from the optical B through the infrared (IR) 4.5 micron bands, in conjunction
with available spectroscopic and COMBO17 data in the CDFS, to construct an
optimised redshift catalogue for our galaxy sample. We computed the Ks-band LF
and determined that its characteristic magnitude has a substantial brightening
and a decreasing total density from z=0 to =2.5. We also analysed the
colours and number density evolution of galaxies with different stellar masses.
Within our sample, and in contrast to what is observed for less massive
systems, the vast majority (~ 85-90%) of the most massive (M>2.5x10^11 Msun)
local galaxies appear to be in place before redshift z ~1. Around 65-70% of the
total assemble between redshifts z=1 and z=3 and most of them display extremely
red colours, suggesting that plausible star formation in these very massive
systems should mainly proceed in obscured, short-timescale bursts. The
remaining fraction (up to ~ 20%) could be in place at even higher redshifts
z=3-4, pushing the first epoch of formation of massive galaxies beyond the
limits of current near-IR surveys.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS. 16 pages, 15 figure