T20 Geology in the National Parks: Research, Mapping, and Resource Management I

Sunday, 7 November 2004
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM

GETTING OVER THE HUMP: BLANCAN RECORDS OF CAMELOPS FROM NORTH AMERICA, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO HAGERMAN, IDAHO AND THE 111 RANCH, ARIZONA

Paper number: T20-7
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 9:35 AM – 9:50 AM

Authors

Abstract

We surveyed 35 reports of Camelops from Blancan sediments of western North America. Many of these records appear in preliminary faunal lists with no specimens described. Reports that do mention specimens are based on isolated, often fragmentary and usually non-diagnostic elements.

Two exceptions are the materials from the Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument, and an exceptionally well-preserved skull, mandible and partial skeleton from the 111 Ranch Beds, Graham County, Arizona. This material is described as the basis for a review of Blancan Camelops. The material from Hagerman is referable securely to Camelops, but cannot at present be referred to a species. The Arizona material (F:AM 41020) is referable to Camelops traviswhitei, described from the latest Blancan or earliest Irvingtonian of Aguascalientes, Mexico. Camelops is therefore present in North American beginning at least as early as the Middle Blancan (Blancan 2 of Repenning), 3.2 – 4.0 mya and surviving until the megafaunal extinctions at the end of Rancholabrean some 11,000 years bp.