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Dining in the Pleistocene—Who's on the menu?

¹ Department of Geological Sciences, 701 Sumter Street, EWS 617, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208, USA
² Department of Geological Sciences, 701 Sumter Street, EWS 617, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina 29208, USA, and South Carolina State Museum, 301 Gervais Street, Columbia, South Carolina 29201, USA

The Camelot local fauna, a new fossil locality in southeastern South Carolina, has yielded a spectacularly abundant and well-preserved late Irvingtonian (ca. 400 ka) megafauna, including saber-toothed cat (Smilodon fatalis), wolf (Canis armbrusteri), cheetah (Miracinonyx inexpectatus), "camels" (Hemiauchenia macrocephala and Paleolama mirifica), tapir (Tapirus veroensis), deer (Odocoileus virginianus), sloth (Megalonyx jeffersoni), and horse (Equus sp.). Of particular interest is the number of well-preserved fossil teeth and the ability to decipher paleoecologies and paleodiets, especially for carnivores, by using carbon isotope compositions (¹³C) of these teeth. P. mirifica, M. jeffersoni, O. virginianus, and T. veroensis have the lowest ¹³C values (–16 to –13, Vienna Peedee belemnite standard); C. armbrusteri, S. fatalis, and H. macrocephala have intermediate values (–13 to –8); and Equus sp. has the highest values (–7 to –1). High (>–5) vs. low (–9) ¹³C values for herbivores indicate local habitats dominated by warm-climate grasses vs. trees and shrubs. The high ¹³C values for Equus sp. indicate the presence of grasslands, whereas the low ¹³C values for the other herbivores generally indicate the presence of forests. Although few data are available for carnivores, moderate ¹³C values for C. armbrusteri indicate that it preyed mainly upon forest herbivores. S. fatalis appears to have preferred marginal woodland-grassland areas.

Key Words: megafauna • paleoecology • stable isotopes • teeth • diet • Pleistocene

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