Pleistocene caribou (Rangifer tarandus) in the eastern United States: New records and range extensions ...

• Main Authors: Stewart, Kathlyn, Seymour, Kevin, McDonald, Jerry N., Ray, Clayton E., Grady, Frederick
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: University of Toronto Press 1996
• Subjects: Biodiversity; Mammalia; Chiroptera; Chordata; Animalia; bats; bat; Rangifer tarandus
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13483287; https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.13483287

(Uploaded by Plazi for the Bat Literature Project) The caribou, Rangifer iarandus, apparently originated from Nearctic odocoileine stock during the late Pliocene or early Pleistocene. Churcher et al. (1989) identified more than twenty sites in eastern North America, south and east of the Great Lakes, from which remains of Rangifer are known, and Steadman (1988), Gallagher et al. (1989), and Martin and Sneed (1989) identified three other sites that had produced caribou. Here are identified eleven records of caribou, nine of which are new, from the eastern United States. Six of these contribute to a redefinition of the limits of the southeastward range of Rangifer on the continent. Two new radiocarbon dates for Rangifer include >36,830 BP tRangifer, Atlantic Coast near North Carolina/Vuginia border) and 27,900 ± 775 BP (?Rangifer, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina), the former the oldest absolutely dated record of caribou from the region. Rangifer probably occupied the eastern United States during glacial ...