. Annals of the South African Museum = Annale van die Suid-Afrikaanse Museum. Natural history. PALAEOECOLOGY OF LANGEBAANWEG 77 species most commonly represented by easily distinguishable horn-cores. Abnormal wear on the teeth (Fig. 16) is reminiscent of that which is often found in zoo animals that have been provided with inappropriate food. For example, abrasive food such as hay, which is suitable only for hypsodont grazers, causes excessive and irregular wear on the teeth of browsers. Living reduncines are grazers, but the 'E' Quarry species have teeth resembling those of the browsing trage
. Annals of the South African Museum = Annale van die Suid-Afrikaanse Museum. Natural history. PALAEOECOLOGY OF LANGEBAANWEG 77 species most commonly represented by easily distinguishable horn-cores. Abnormal wear on the teeth (Fig. 16) is reminiscent of that which is often found in zoo animals that have been provided with inappropriate food. For example, abrasive food such as hay, which is suitable only for hypsodont grazers, causes excessive and irregular wear on the teeth of browsers. Living reduncines are grazers, but the 'E' Quarry species have teeth resembling those of the browsing tragelaphines (Gentry 1980: 255-256). The implication is that the bed 3aN reduncines were browsers that were including in their diet an abrasive food (probably grasses) to which they were ill-adapted. Indications are, therefore, that by bed 3aN times at least some, and perhaps all, the browsing herbivores in the fauna were under stress, with mortality probably being higher than usual. Thus, it could have been the diminution rather than an increase in woodland habitats that led to the increased number of browsers being incorporated into the accumulating 'E' Quarry deposits. It has previously been postulated that rainfall at that time was strongly seasonal and that the fossiliferous channel deposits of beds 3aS and 3aN represent flood-season accumulations ( Hendey 1980: 60-62). Conversely, the subaerially accumulated fossils of the QSM accumulated during the dry season (Hendey 1976a: 223-225). These conclusions are based on the nature of the deposits and the incorporated fossils. For example, burnt bone is a not uncommon element of the QSM and PPM assemblages, indicating that vegetation and/or peat fires were a feature of the area at the time of their deposition (Hendey 1980: 66-67). Since hominid activity can be excluded as a possible cause of fires, as can volcanic activity and. rv'. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitall
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky
