New Occurrence of Paleocene Mammals in the Evanston Formation, Southwestern Wyoming

Abstract

A new fossil horizon and locality for the Evanston formation, near Little Muddy Creek in the Fossil Basin of southwestern Wyoming, has yielded remains of a mammalian faunule of middle Paleocene age. Relationships are shown to the two widely separated classic occurrences: the upper Lebo of the Montana Fort Union and the New Mexico Torrejon. A correlation is also indicated with the Battle Mountain and Rock Bench occurrences in the more local Wyoming region. The known faunule is comprised of essentially small Mammalia representing the orders Multituberculata, Insectivora, Primates, Creodonta, and Condylarthra. The material consists for the most part of isolated teeth, hence identifications are necessarily tentative in nature.