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A LIST, BIBLIOGRAPHY, AND INDEX OF THE FOSSIL
VERTEBRATES OF LOUISIANA AND MISSISSIPPI
DARYL P. DOMNING

Tulane University
New Orleans, l.ouisiana

ABSTRACT

Species of fossil vertebrates reported from Louisiana and Mississippi are listed, The
bibliography consists of 167 titles and contains detailed annotations on vertebrates from those
states. Both systematic and chronologic-geographic indexes are provided.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF
VERTEBRATE PALEONTOLOGY
IN LOUISIANA AND MISSISSIPPI

Louisiana and Mississippi are not usually thought of as areas possessing significant numbers of fossil vertebrates. Compared with many other parts of the United States, they seem to be among the least productive in this regard; but it would be more accurate to say they are among the most neglected. In fact, this region contains quite respect- able fossil faunas — principally Cretaceous, Eocene, and Pleistocene in age — and includes several classic localities of considerable interest in the history of the science as a whole.

%e have, of course, no way of knowing when man first noticed fossil bones in the Louisiana-Mississippi region. Culin (1900) mentions several Indian mounds in the

vicinity of Natchez in which, apparently, mastodon bones and shark teeth were found. Indeed, it has been demon- strated that man was a contemporary of the large Late Pleistocene mammals in this area„e.g., by the fossil human pelvis from Natchez and the artifacts associated with extinct animals at Avery Island.

But excluding Natchez Man from the roster of students of prehistoric Mississippi vertebrates, the earliest notice of fossil bones in this area seems to have been that of Martin