Egertonia Fossil Record from Late Cretaceous South India

This dataset documents a new occurrence of the phyllodontid fish Egertonia from the Late Cretaceous Kallamedu Formation in the Cauvery Basin, South India. It represents the oldest record of Phyllodontidae in India and the second Cretaceous Gondwanan occurrence of this genus. The data supports paleoenvironmental and biogeographic analyses of Late Cretaceous fauna.

Use Cases

• Analyze the taxonomic classification of the Egertonia specimen to compare with other Gondwanan occurrences.
• Correlate the presence of Egertonia with fluvial-deltaic or brackish paleoenvironmental indicators from the Kallamedu Formation.
• Strengthen faunal similarity assessments between India and Madagascar using this Late Cretaceous taxon record.
• Integrate Egertonia data with other Kallamedu Formation taxa like simosuchid crocodiles and abelisaurid dinosaurs for community analysis.

Strengths

• Dataset is associated with a peer-reviewed scientific publication reporting a new fossil occurrence.
• The record expands the known geographic and temporal distribution of the genus Egertonia in Gondwana.
• Data is released under the permissive CC0 1.0 public domain license.

Limitations

• The dataset scope is limited to a single fossil occurrence, providing a small sample size for statistical analysis.
• Specific data structure, columns, and sample data are not described, limiting immediate analytical utility.
• The dataset's last update was in 2020, and no update frequency is specified.

Provenance

Source

Dryad digital repository.

Collection Method

Paleontological fossil discovery and analysis.

Time Range

Late Cretaceous.

Freshness

Last updated 2020-06-24.

Geography

Kallamedu Formation, Cauvery Basin, South India.