The Bauru Basin in São Paulo and its tetrapods

Funding Information: The authors thank the editors of Derbyana, especially its Editor-in-Chief Silvio T. Hiruma, for the invitation to participate in this volume dedicated to “Advances in Paleontology”. This contribution results from FAPESP grant 2020/07997-4, to which most of the authors are affiliated. We also thank the Derbyana ad-hoc reviewers, Drs. Agustin Martinelli and Fabiano Iori, for their helpful comments to the manuscript. FIGURE 6 – Cumulative chronological distribution of the tetrapod fossil record in the Bauru Basin of São Paulo (1913-2022) compared to science and technology funding metrics and events: A – For all tetrapods; grey bars indicate total records of tables 1-5; green line indicates taxonomic richness (grey lines in Tables 1-5); pink line indicates FAPESP budget in billions of reais between 1976 and 2021 (FAPESP 2022); blue line indicates CNPq, CAPES, and FINEP budget in millions of reais between 1996 and 2018 (ESCOBAR 2019). Events indicated by arrows correspond, in chronological sequence, to the foundations of USP, “Instituto Geográfico e Geológico”, FAPESP, Unicamp, UNESP, “Instituto Geológico”, and Monte Alto Museum of Paleontology, the implementations of the Qualis list, the Lattes curriculum, the CAPES Portal de Periódicos, and the CNPq “grant”, the foundation of the Marília Museum of Paleontology, the release of the first MCT/CNPq public call for “Strengthening National Paleontology”, and the foundation of “Pedro Candolo” Museum of Paleontology. B – Separately for each recorded tetrapod group, coloured lines indicate total of records in tables 1-5 of Anura = light blue, Crocodyliformes = red, Mammalia = purple, Sauropoda = green, Squamata = yellow, Testudines = orange, and Theropoda = dark blue. Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2022 The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers. The Bauru Basin bears one of the best sampled tetrapod paleofaunas of Brazil, with about 70% of this diversity collected from its deposits in São Paulo. Its fossils are known since the beginning of the 20th century, coming from all stratigraphic units of the Basin cropping-out in the state, i.e., Santo Anastácio, Araçatuba, Adamantina (alternatively divided into Vale do Rio do Peixe, Presidente Prudente, and São José do Rio Preto formations), and Marília formations. Identified taxa include rare anurans, mammals, and squamates, an important set of testudines, theropods (including birds), and sauropods, in addition to one of the most diverse crocodyliform faunas known worldwide. This congregates more than fifty unique taxonomic entities, including 42 formally described species. Based on biostratigraphic correlations (including tetrapods), on few absolute ages, and other sources of evidence, the Bauru Basin deposits in São Paulo seem to be chronologically restricted to the Late Cretaceous, but further investigation is much needed. Finally, the history of research with such fossils highlights the importance of public funding for research and decentralization of university education for the advancement of science. publishersversion published