Red Light Local Fauna (Blancan) of the Love Formation, Southeastern Hudspeth County, Texas

Two new formations in the Red Light Bolson have yielded vertebrate fossils. The Red Light local fauna consists of thirty taxa of mammals and numerous lower vertebrates from fluvial deposits. The much smaller Aguila local fauna is from older playa deposits. The stratigraphic and faunal successions indicate a climatic change from arid playa conditions to moist fluvial conditions. This change is probably a result of the onset of pluvial conditions related to glaciation at higher latitudes. At the time that the youngest part of the Red Light local fauna lived, the bolson was occupied by a permanent, flowing drainage and three major terrestrial environments probably existed in the area. Brush or succulent vegetation grew along the drainage, a savannah with scattered trees existed between the drainage and the mountains, and the mountains were largely covered with brush. The playa and fluvial deposits are correlated with the Fort Hancock and Camp Rice Formations, respectively, in the Hueco Bolson. The Red Light local fauna correlates with the Hudspeth local fauna from the Hueco Bolson. Faunal evidence indicates that it lived during the Pleistocene portion of the Blancan and, from stratigraphic evidence, this is narrowed to the Nebraskan.