New Genus of Deer Discovered at Badlands National Park

News Release Date: May 9, 2024

Contact: [email protected]

Interior, S.D. - A team of researchers from Badlands National Park, the American Museum of Natural History, and California State Polytechnic University have described the fossil remains of a new genus of tiny, hornless deer that lived in South Dakota about 32 million years ago, during the Oligocene Epoch.

The research, headed by Mattison Shreero and Ed Welsh of Badlands National Park, was published this week in the Proceedings of the South Dakota Academy of Science.

The new deer, Santuccimeryx ("Santucci's ruminant"), was named after Vincent L. Santucci, the Senior Paleontologist and Paleontology Program Coordinator in the Geologic Resources Division of the National Park Service, to honor his history with and advocacy for the paleontology program at Badlands National Park.

"I am both personally and professionally grateful to be associated with this important new fossil discovery from Badlands National Park, where I began my career as a paleontologist with the National Park Service in 1985," Santucci said.

Santuccimeryx belongs to the extinct family Leptomerycidae, and its skull shares features of both the Oligocene genus Leptomeryx and the Miocene genus Pseudoparablastomeryx, two animals that are nearly 10 million years apart in time. The family Leptomerycidae were about the size of house cats and lived in North America from the late-middle Eocene (about 41 million years ago) to the end of the middle Miocene (about 11 million years ago). They are considered close relatives to the living chevrotains, or mouse deer, from the tropical forests of central and western Africa and southeast Asia.

Shreero said the newly discovered Santuccimeryx has teeth similar to Leptomeryx and a skull more akin to Pseudoparablastomeryx, and since it does not fit into either existing genus, she and Welsh concluded the deer must be placed into a new genus of its own.

The first and only known skull of Santuccimeryx, which prompted this research, was discovered at Badlands in 2016, through a Visitor Site Report submitted by Geoscientists-in-the-Parks intern Tiffany Leone.

"It's a really neat example with this paper to be able to highlight citizen science, because this is the only skull of this animal ever found," Shreero said. "And if somebody had walked away with it, or if they just hadn't reported it and it had eroded away, we would have never known about it."

Visitors at Badlands who spot what they think might be a fossil or artifact are asked to leave it in place and submit a Visitor Site Report at the Visitor Center, with a park ranger, or by email information about their find to [email protected]. They should take a photo of the undisturbed find, preferably with another object or feature in sight to show scale, and document the coordinates or location of the find.

(Other parks have similar procedures. Check with park staff for more information.)

"We definitely want to encourage people to go out, make discoveries, take photos, take coordinates, and report that to the to the park," said Welsh, the Badlands education specialist. "But the important note is leaving things where they're found."

For Shreero, the research also highlights the importance of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education and opportunities for women and girls.

"I've always felt very lucky to be a woman in STEM because it does require some level of persistence and stubbornness to actually make any sort of ground," she said. "I've been super lucky to be surrounded by a staff of very supportive people who are always down to help me along the way."

Shreero said she enjoys interacting with young girls who visit the park, because she has the opportunity to model a career she once dreamed of.

"I was that little girl at the age of four, walking around telling people that I wanted to be a geologist and paleontologist, and that's what I did," she said. "I just try to encourage them and say it's something you love, keep up with it, get into it, keep exploring, and keep learning."

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More information about visiting Badlands National Park can be found at: Badlands National Park (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov)

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