Resumen de Los mamíferos del Cretácico inferior de España

Gloria Cuenca Bescós, José Ignacio Canudo Sanagustín

• Isolated teeth of mammals are the early Cretaceous Iberian record at localities such as Galve (uppermost Hauterivian-lower Barremian), Vallipón (upper Barremian) and La Cantalera (uppermost Hauterivian-lowermost Barremian) in Teruel and Uña in Cuenca (upper Barremian). Multitu-berculates, small, rodent-like, herbivorous mammals dominate the mammal assemblages, where Jurassic survivors lived together with probably cretaceous asian immigrants. There were also insectivorous such as dryolestids, spalacotherids, peramurids, gobiconodontids and docodonts. Modernmammals are almost absent from Early Cretaceous assemblages of Spain except for one possible, but very bad preserved therian form Vallipón. The rareness of mammals at the cretaceous localities may be related, at least to three factors: Two related with the ecology of the terrestrial ecosystemsand one to the palaeogeography during the iberian Cretaceous. Mammals were not so abundant asshrews and rodents are today. Probably other small vertebrates as crocodiles and theropods dominated the terrestrial ecosystems. The predators (as the nocturnal birds of prey) were probably less importance as the factor of accumulation as they are today. The geological factor is related with the large Early Cretaceous basins where too ample to favour the concentration of animal carcasses ingeneral, both its preservation and accumulation.