Palaeoecological implications of an Upper Cretaceous tetrapod burrow (Bauru Basin; Peirópolis, Minas Gerais, Brazil)

Abstract

We describe a globally rare example of a tetrapod burrow from the Upper Cretaceous Bauru Group (Bauru Basin) from Peirópolis, Minas Gerais State, Brazil. The sedimentary succession containing the burrow includes a rich vertebrate assemblage comprising fish, podocnemid turtles, mesoeucrocodylians, saurischian dinosaurs, among others. The burrow is composed of an oblique tunnel (~30°), oval in cross-section, with a horizontal and sub-oval terminal chamber; it is 1.3 m long from the midpoint of its inferred entrance to the midpoint of the bottom of the chamber. It occurs in the upper portion of a sandstone succession, interpreted as a braided channel deposit, and the burrow-fill comprises medium-grained sandstone with mudstone intraclasts derived from fluvial floodplain facies. it is overlain by other fluvial channel deposits. Analyses suggest that the burrow was dug after the filling of the braided channel and during the pedogenesis of its exposed upper surface. Based on burrow morphology and size, the most plausible producer of this burrow is a notosuchian mesoeucrocodylian, such as small to mid-sized notosuchians (e.g., sphagesaurids). The Bauru Group has an extensive fossil record of notosuchians with disparate morphologies, and it is noteworthy that the small-sized notosuchian Labidiosuchus amicum comes from the same unit as the burrow. Moreover, arid to semi-arid conditions have been inferred for fossil-bearing rocks of this unit, and as such the data here presented add to our palaeoecological knowledge of Cretaceous mesoeucrocodylians in Gondwana. Moreover, it constitutes a new Cretaceous record of a tetrapod burrow during a period when such ichnofossils are globally rare.