Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Cosmopolitanism among Gondwanan Late Cretaceous mammals

Nature volume 390, pages 504–507 (1997)Cite this article

Abstract

Consistent with geophysical evidence for the breaking up of Pangaea, it has been hypothesized that Cretaceous vertebrates on progressively isolated landmasses exhibit generally increasing levels of provincialism1,2,3, with distinctly heightened endemism occurring at the beginning of the Late Cretaceous4. The Cretaceous fossil record from the southern supercontinent of Gondwana has been much too poor to test this hypothesis with regards to mammals (Fig. 1 ). Early Cretaceous mammals are known only from isolated sites in Argentina5, Australia6,7, Cameroon8,9 and Morocco10. Apart from several occurrences in South America11, knowledge of Late Cretaceous Gondwanan mammals is limited to a single site in India that previously yielded a few specimens of placental mammals12,13, and a site in Madagascar that previously yielded only one indeterminate tooth fragment14. Here we report the occurrence of a highly specialized and distinctive group of extinct mammals, the Sudamericidae (Gondwanatheria), in the Late Cretaceous of Madagascar and India. These new records comprise the first evidence of gondwanatheres outside South America and the first indication of cosmopolitanism among Late Cretaceous Gondwanan mammals. Antarctica may have served as an important Cretaceous biogeographic link between South America and Indo-Madagascar.

Shaded areas indicate the distribution of subaerially exposed land (adapted from ref. 26); dots indicate mammal localities; stars indicate mammal localities that have yielded gondwanatheres. Madagascar (M), with the Indian subcontinent (I) attached to its current eastern margin, separated from Africa ∼165 Myr ago and attained its current position relative to the mainland ∼124 Myr (refs 23, 25, 29, 30). Strike-slip motion between the Indian subcontinent and Madagascar began ∼135 Myr (ref. 25), as India rifted from Antarctica, but they remained in proximity until ∼88 Myr (ref. 22), several million years before deposition of the Maevarano Formation18. Indo-Madagascar (I-M) and eastern Antarctica were connected until at least ∼120 Myr (ref. 25), and possibly as late as 80 Myr (ref. 26), across the Kerguelen Plateau (KP). The Antarctic Peninsula remained very close to, or maintained contact with, South America in the Late Cretaceous and into the early Tertiary23,24,26.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 2: Sudamericids from Madagascar and India.
Figure 3: Cladogram showing placement of Lavanify and the unnamed Indian sudamericid within Gondawanatheria.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Bonaparte, J. New Late Cretaceous mammals from the Los Alamitos Formation, northern Patagonia. Natl Geogr. Res. 6, 63–93 (1990).

    Google Scholar 

  2. Le Loeuff, J. The Campano-Maastrichtian vertebrate faunas from southern Europe and their relationships with other faunas in the world; palaeobiogeographical implicaitons. Cretaceous Res. 12, 93–114 (1991).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Russell, D. A. China and the lost worlds of the dinosaurian era. Hist. Biol. 10, 3–12 (1995).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Sereno, P. C. et al. Predatory dinosaurs from the Sahara and Late Cretaceous faunal differentiation. Science 272, 986–991 (1996).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Bonaparte, J. & Rougier, G. Mamíferos del Cretácico Inferior de Patagonia. Mem. IV Congr. Latinoamėricano de Paleontol., Bolivia 1, 343–359 (1987).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Archer, M., Flannery, T. F., Ritchie, A. & Molnar, R. E. First Mesozoic mammal from Australia—an early Cretaceous monotreme. Nature 318, 363–366 (1985).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Flannery, T. F., Archer, M., Rich, T. H. & Jones, R. Anew family of monotremes from the Cretaceous of Australia. Nature 377, 418–420 (1995).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Jacobs, L. L. et al. Mammal teeth from the Cretaceous of Africa. Nature 336, 158–160 (1988).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Brunet, M. et al. Nouveaux mammifères du Crétacé inférieur du Cameroun, Afrique de l'Quest. C. R. Acad. Sci. 310, 1139–1146 (1990).

    Google Scholar 

  10. Sigogneau-Russell, D., Monbaron, M. & Russell, D. E. Découverte de Mammifères dans le Mésozoïque moyen d'Afrique. C. R. Acad. Sci. 307, 1045–1050 (1988).

    Google Scholar 

  11. Marshall, L. G. & Sempere, T. in Biological Relationships Between Africa and America (ed. Goldblatt, P.) 329–392 (Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, CT, (1993)).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  12. Prasad, G. V. R. & Sahni, A. First Cretaceous mammal from India. Nature 332, 638–640 (1988).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Prasad, G. V. R., Jaeger, J. J., Sahni, A., Gheerbrant, E. & Khajuria, C. K. Eutherian mammals from the Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Intertrapean beds of Naskal, Andhra Pradesh, India. J. Vert. Paleontol. 14, 260–277 (1994).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Krause, D. W. et al. Late Cretaceous mammals. Nature 368, 298 (1994).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  15. Krause, D. W., Kielan-Jaworowska, Z. & Bonaparte, J. F. Ferugliotherium Bonaparte, the first known multituberculate from South America. J. Vert. Paleontol. 12, 351–376 (1992).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Krause, D. W. & Bonaparte, J. F. Superfamily Gondwanatherioidea: A previously unrecognized radiation of multituberculate mammals in South America. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 90, 9379–9383 (1993).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Pascual, R., Goin, F. J., Ortiz-Jaureguizar, E., Carlini, A. & Prado, J. L. Ferugliotherium and Sudamerica, Multituberculata and Gondwanatheria: One more evolutionary process occurred in isolation. Ameghiniana 30, 334–335 (1993).

    Google Scholar 

  18. Krause, D. W., Hartman, J. H. & Wells, N. A. in Natural Change and Human Impact in Madagascar (eds Goodman, S. M. & Patterson, B. D. ) 3–43 (Smithsonian Inst. Press, Washington DC, (1997)).

    Google Scholar 

  19. Sigogneau-Russell, D., Bonaparte, J. F., Frank, R. M. & Escribano, V. Ultrasctructure of dental hard tissues of Gondwanatherium and Sudamerica (Mammalia, Gondwanatheria). Lethaia 24, 27–38 (1991).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Grine, F. E., Fosse, G., Krause, D. W. & Jungers, W. L. Analysis of enamel ultrastructure in archaeology: the identification of Ovis aries and Capra hircus dental remains. J. Archaeol. Sci. 13, 579–595 (1986).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Sahni, A. Cretaceous-Paleocene terrestrial faunas of India: Lack of endemism during drifting of the Indian plate. Science 226, 441–443 (1984).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  22. Storey, M. et al. Timing of hot spot-related volcanism and the breakup of Madagascar and India. Science 267, 852–855 (1995).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Lawver, L. A., Gahagan, L. M. & Coffin, M. F. The development of paleoseaways around Antarctica. Antarctic Res. Ser. 56, 7–30 (1992).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Shen, Y. Apaleoisthmus between southern South America and Antarctic Peninsula during Late Cretaceous and Early Tertiary. VII Int. Symp. Antarctic Earth Sciences Abstr. 345, 345 (1995)).

    Google Scholar 

  25. Roeser, H. A., Fritsch, J. & Hinz, K. The development of the crust off Dronning Maud Land, East Antarctica. Geol. Soc. Spec. Publ. 108, 243–264 (1996).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  26. Hay, W. W. et al. in The Evolution of Cretaceous Ocean/Climate Systems (eds Barrera, E. & Johnson, C.) (Geological Society of America, special publication, in the press).

  27. Sampson, S. D., Krause, D. W., Dodson, P. & Forster, C. A. The premaxilla of Magungasaurus (Dinosauria: Theropoda) with implications for Gondwanan paleobiogeography. J. Vert. Paleontol. 16, 601–605 (1996).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Russell, D. A. Isolated dinosaur bones from the Middle Cretaceous of the Tafilalt, Morocco. Bull. Mus. Natl Hist. Nat. Paris 18, 349–402 (1996).

    Google Scholar 

  29. Smith, A. G., Smith, D. G. & Funnell, B. M. Atlas of Mesozoic and Cenozoic Coastlines (Cambridge Univ. Press, (1994)).

    Google Scholar 

  30. Coffin, M. F. & Rabinowitz, P. D. The Mesozoic East African and Madagascan conjugate continental margins. Am. Assoc. Petrol. Geol. Mem. 53, 207–246 (1992).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank B. Rakotosamimanana, P. Wright, B. Andriamihaja and the Institute for the Conservation of Tropical Environments staff for help with fieldwork in Madagascar; members of the 1995 and 1996 field crews for their efforts; J. Ratsimbazafy for Malagasy translations; C. Forster, R. Fox, Z. Kielan-Jaworowska, R. Presley, T. Rich, G. Rougier and S. Sampson for discussion and/or review of earlier drafts of the manuscript; W. Hay for permission to cite unpublished work; and L. Betti-Nash and M. Stewart for assistance with the figures. This work was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Geographic Society, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook, New York, 11794, USA

    David W. Krause

  2. Department of Geology, University of Jammu, 180 004, Jammu, India

    G. V. R. Prasad

  3. Institute of Palaeontology, University of Bonn, Nussallee 8, Bonn, D-53115, Germany

    Wighart von Koenigswald

  4. Centre of Advanced Study in Geology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, 160 014, India

    Ashok Sahni

  5. Departments of Anthropology and Anatomical Sciences, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, New York, 11794, USA

    Frederick E. Grine

Authors
  1. David W. Krause
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. G. V. R. Prasad
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Wighart von Koenigswald
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Ashok Sahni
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Frederick E. Grine
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David W. Krause.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Krause, D., Prasad, G., von Koenigswald, W. et al. Cosmopolitanism among Gondwanan Late Cretaceous mammals. Nature 390, 504–507 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/37343

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/37343

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing