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BITE MARKS ON A CROCODYLOMORPH FROM THE UPPER CRETACEOUS OF BRAZIL: EVIDENCE OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOR?

Fossil bones that bear marks from activities of other organisms can provide insight into the ecology, behavior, and functional morphology of the taxa that produced them (Evans, 1983; Bell and Martin, 1995; Erickson and Olson, 1996; Tanke and Currie, 1998). However, most studies on such marks concern invertebrate bioturbation or bioerosion (Carvalho and Fernandes, 2000). Studies on bone marks produced by vertebrates are less common (Abel, 1922; Buffetaut, 1983; Evans, 1983; Fiorillo, 1991; Erickson and Olson, 1996; Tanke and Currie, 1998; Frey et al., 2002). Bite marks are usually interpreted as the result of predator or scavenger habit, although determination between these two habits is controversial, at best. In other words, it is uncertain if the teeth marks presented on a fossil are record of the use of a lethal “weapon” or the record of a post-mortem alimentary association. In the austral spring of 2001, the Laboratório de Macrofósseis/IGEO Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro organized a paleontological expedition to some fossil localities at the Adamatina Formation in the state of São Paulo. The Adamantina Formation is a very fossiliferous unit of the Bauru Basin, Brazil. The most important fossil localities of this basin are located in the states of São Paulo, Mato Grosso, and Minas Gerais (Kellner and Campos, 2000), where a rich fauna of fishes, amphibians, crocodiles, lizards, turtles, dinosaurs and a mammal have been recovered (Bertini et al., 1993). The Adamantina Formation is dominated by reddish clays and sands of fluvial-lacustrine origin, deposited during times of warm and humid climates (Suguio and Barcelos, 1983). Judging from its vertebrate fossil contents, the Adamantina deposits were likely deposited sometime between the Santonian and Maastrichtian (Fernandes and Coimbra, 1996). The 2001 expedition produced a collection of ichnofossils and fossil remains including, mollusks, fishes, turtles, crocodylomorphs, and dinosaurs. Among these fossils, we found a tail of an adult crocodylomorph (Fig. 1) on which we found evidence of bite injuries. In the present paper, we describe those marks and argue that members of the same species made those injuries, probably in intermale combat.