The fossil assemblage from Pontils, a middle Eocene primate-bearing locality from Northeastern SpainCitation for this article: Minwer-Barakat, R., Bolet, A., Anadón, P., Alegret, L., Badiola, A., Blanco, A., Cotton, L., Femenias-Gual, J., Furió, M., Godinot, M., Moyà-Solà, S., Peláez-Campomanes, P., Sanjuan, J., & Marigó, J. (2023) The fossil assemblage from Pontils, a middle Eocene primate-bearing locality from Northeastern Spain. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology . https://doi.org…

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe Pontils fossil site (middle Eocene, Ebro Basin, Spain) includes several vertebrate-bearing levels situated in a sequence recording a continental to marine transition. Although the locality has been known since the 1980s and scarce mammal remains have been already documented, an intensive sampling has not been developed until now. This work presents the first results of the recent field campaigns carried out at this site. Seven levels have yielded significant vertebrate remains, revealing a diverse assemblage which includes chondrichthyans, actinopterygians, amphibians, crocodilians, squamates, metatherians, eulipotyphlans, apatotherians, chiropterans, rodents, artiodactyls, perissodactyls, and primates, besides other non-vertebrate fossils. The Pontils assemblage indicates a mangrove swamp environment with warm and humid conditions and increasing marine influence towards the top of the sequence. Among mammals, primates are particularly diverse, including abundant remains of a minuscule, still undetermined omomyiform, and scarce teeth of Pseudoloris, Necrolemur, and an undetermined anchomomyin. The occurrence of larger benthic foraminifera allows the assignment of Pontils to Shallow Benthic Zone 17 (Bartonian), solving the debate about the age of the locality, previously assigned either to the Bartonian or the Lutetian. These data, together with previous magnetostratigraphic analyses, allow correlation to chrons C18r or C18n.1r, constraining the age of Pontils to between 39.58 and 41 Ma. Therefore, the Pontils site represents a new reference section for the correlation of marine and continental biostratigraphy during the middle Eocene. ACKNOWLEDGMENTSWe are indebted to all the people who participated in the collection and treatment of the samples, especially to D. M. Alba, J. M. Méndez, V. Fondevilla, G. Pons-Monjo, J. Lahiguera, E. Tarragó, A. Tamaral, Ó. Castillo, M. Acosta, M. Grau, S. Gómez, J. V. Bertó, P. López-Guerrero, A. Oliver, and A. R. Gómez-Cano. We are also grateful to J. Aguirre, who studied the invertebrate remains, and C. Grenier for his comments on the bryozoans. We want to thank L. Marivaux, M. Vianey-Liaud, B. Marandat (Institut des Sciences de l'Évolution-Université de Montpellier), L. Costeur (Naturhistorisches Museum Basel), J. J. Hooker (Natural History Museum, London), and the rest of the staff of these institutions, for their help and assistance when visiting their collections. We also want to acknowledge the editor Faysal Bibi, and the reviewers (Fabrice Lihoreau and an anonymous reviewer) for their constructive comments that greatly improved the quality of the manuscript. This work has been supported by CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya, research project PID2020-116908GB-I00 financed by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, project CLT009/18/00069 financed by the Culture Department of the Generalitat de Catalunya, and project P20_00066 financed by the Consejería de Universidad, Investigación e Innovación, Junta de Andalucía/FEDER, as well as the research groups 2022 SGR 01188, 2021 SGR 00127 (Generalitat de Catalunya) and RNM190 (Junta de Andalucía). Funding for A. Bolet comes from a Juan de la Cierva Incorporación fellowship (IJC2018-037685-I) Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of the Spanish Government and a María Zambrano Junior Fellowship funded by the Ministerio de Universidades and the NextGenerationEU programme, as well as the project AL\221010 funded by the Royal Society (U.K.). L. Alegret acknowledges funding from project PID2019-105537RB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and by “ERDF A way of making Europe,” and the use of Servicio General de Apoyo a la Investigación-SAI, Universidad de Zaragoza. A. Badiola is funded by project PID2021-122355NB-C31 (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Spanish Government). J. Femenias-Gual is financed by Margarita Salas grant from the Ministerio de Universidades, Spain, funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU. Funding for J. Marigó comes from a “Ramón y Cajal” contract (RYC2021-034366-I) funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR.AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONSRMB and JM designed the project. RMB, JM, PA, A Bolet, and JFG carried out the fieldwork. PA described the stratigraphic section. RMB and JM studied the primate remains. PPC described the rodent fossils. MF studied the metatherians, eulipotyphlans, apatotherians, and chiropterans. A Badiola studied the perissodactyl and artiodactyl remains. A Bolet described the squamate and amphibian material. A Blanco studied the crocodyliforms, chondrichthyans, and actinopterygians. LC and LA studied the foraminifera. JS described the charophytes. All authors edited the manuscript.DISCLOSURE STATEMENTNo potential conflict of interest was declared by the authors.