page_title: Collón Curá Formation
section_title: Paleontological significance
hierarchical_section_title: Collón Curá Formation / Paleontological significance
caption_attribution_description: English: Post-cranial bones of Protypotherium endiadys of the Collón Curá Formation, Argentina
context_page_description: The Collón Curá Formation is a Middle Miocene fossiliferous geological formation of the southern Neuquén Basin in northwestern Patagonia and the western Cañadón Asfalto Basin of central Patagonia, Argentina. The formation crops out from the southern Neuquén Province, the western Río Negro Province to the northern Chubut Province.
  The formation, with a maximum thickness of 300 metres, comprises tuffs and sandstones with minor siltstones, marls and limestones, deposited in a fluvial, deltaic and shallow to deep lacustrine environment in small basins separated by faults. The formation dates from the Langhian to earliest Tortonian epochs of the Middle to Late Miocene, typically Colloncuran.
  The Collón Curá Formation is named after Estancia Collón Curá along the Collón Curá River, a tributary of the Limay River in the Río Negro watershed, and lends its name to the Colloncuran, one of the South American land mammal ages. The formation has provided many fossils of mammals, reptiles, among others the snake Waincophis australis, and the largest terror bird Kelenken guillermoi.
context_section_description: The mammal fauna of the Collón Curá Formation led researchers to establish the Colloncuran age in the SALMA classification, ranging from 15.5 to 13.8 Ma. This age, used in South America as subdivision for the Cenozoic, follows on the Friasian age, defined from the Chilean Río Frías Formation of the Aysén Basin and precedes the Laventan age, named after the Konzentrat-Lagerstätte La Venta pertaining to the Honda Group of the Upper Magdalena Valley of central Colombia.
  The rodent Galileomys colloncurensis, and the typothere Protypotherium colloncurensis were named after the formation.
  The fossil mammal assemblage of the Collón Curá Formation represents a fauna preceding the evolution of the Caviidae. The oldest true caviid, Prodolichotis pridiana is known from the Villavieja and La Victoria Formations of La Venta, Colombia. Sister taxa of these caviids first appeared in the Colloncuran; Guiomys unica and Microcardiodon williensis, found in the Collón Curá Formation. In alternative classification proposed in 2012 by Pérez and Pol, Guiomys is considered an optional early caviid, pushing back the lineage to the Colloncuran.
caption: Post-cranial bones of P. endiadys
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