page_title: Honda Group, Colombia
section_title: Fossil content
hierarchical_section_title: Honda Group, Colombia / Fossil content
caption_attribution_description: Arapaima
context_page_description: The Honda Group is a geological group of the Upper and Middle Magdalena Basins and the adjacent Central and Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. The group, in older literature also defined as formation, is in its present-day type section in the Tatacoa Desert in the department of Huila subdivided into two main formations; La Victoria and Villavieja.
  The group was originally defined in and named after Honda, Tolima, but has been redefined based on the many fossil finds in the Tatacoa Desert, 250 kilometres to the south. In the original type section of its occurrence, the 3,255 metres thick group is subdivided into three formations, from old to young; Cambrás, San Antonio and Los Limones.
  The group dates to the Neogene period; in its broadest definition from the Late Oligocene to Late Miocene, and in the redefined type section restricted to the Laventan age of the South American Land Mammal Ages, equivalent to the Middle Miocene Serravallian epoch.
  The Honda Group is a Konzentrat-Lagerstätte at the fossiliferous La Venta site in the department of Huila and eastern Tolima and hosts one of the richest formations containing Miocene fauna worldwide.
context_section_description: The Honda Group is the richest fossiliferous stratigraphic unit of Colombia, and one of the most important for the Miocene worldwide. At the La Venta site, numerous fossils of various orders have been recovered and are found still. The site marks a unique ecosystem showing a broad range of biodiversity. La Venta is also an important site as it represents the youngest uniquely South American faunal assemblage before the Great American Biotic Interchange; the result of the uplift of the Isthmus of Panama, of which the initial phase has been dated at around 12 Ma. This led to a drastic alteration of the South American former island continental fauna. The Sparassodonta formed the dominant carnivorous mammal group in South America during most of the Cenozoic.
  In South America, the carnivorous adaptive zone in terrestrial ecosystems was shared with other mammals; terror birds (Phorusrhacoidea), large crocodiles (Sebecidae), large snakes (Madsoiidae and Boidae), and even occasionally frogs. The diversity of fossil freshwater fishes and crocodilians at La Venta is the richest assemblage of South America. Fossilised trunks of Goupioxylon sp. have been identified in the Honda Group.
  The genus names Hondadelphys and Hondathentes, and the species epithets of Anadasypus hondanus and Scirrotherium hondaensis refer to the Honda Group. The giant sloth Brievabradys laventensis, the primate Stirtonia tatacoensis (originally described as Kondous laventicus), and the marsupial Micoureus laventicus were named after La Venta, while the primates Miocallicebus villaviejai and Stirtonia victoriae received their species epithets from the formations comprising the Honda Group.
caption: A fossil species in the genus Arapaima has been described among the many fishes from the Honda Group
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