Late Pleistocene vertebrates from Touro Passo Creek (Touro Passo Formation), southern Brazil: a review

Abstract

Touro Passo Creek is one of the most important fossiliferous late Pleistocene localities from southern Brazil. Although fossil vertebrates collected from this locality have been studied since the 1970s, several questions remain open. This paper provides a review of the knowledge on this subject accumulated since the original proposition of the Touro Passo Formation in 1976. The fossil assemblages of Touro Passo Creek show a predominance of mammals, and among them, artiodactyls and cingulates are the most diverse. The available absolute ages indicate that the fine-grained lithological levels (at least) were deposited during humid conditions of the Last Glacial Maximum, within oxygen isotope stages 3 and 2. The mammal assemblages contain a mixture of intertropical and pampean taxa. The large span of time that encompasses the deposition of the Touro Passo Creek beds could have contributed to this faunal mixture.