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NUMBER 89 153
FIGURE 12.—Area of sympatry of seabirds from Cueva de Nerja, Spain (epipalaeolithic layer) (Puffinus griseus,
Calonectris diomedea, Morus bassanus, Phalacrocorax aristotelis, Catharacta skua, Uria aalge, Pinguinus
impennis). (•=fossil site.)
in defining the age of these faunas. These faunas can be divided
into two groups: faunas that indicate significantly colder
conditions than at present and faunas that indicate conditions
approximately similar to the present day.
GROTTA PIETRO TAMPOIA, ITALY.—This is a "warm" fauna
{Puffinus puffinus, Calonectris diomedea, Hydrobates pelagicus),
indicating conditions similar to today, which supports
Mayaud and Schaub's (1950) view that the fossils from this
site are largely or wholly of Holocene age.
BUCA DEL BERSAGLIERI, ITALY.—This also is a warm fauna
{Puffinus puffinus, Phalacrocorax aristotelis) (Figure 13),
particularly because at least some of the shearwater fossils are
from the warm-water species Puffinus {puffinus) yelkouan.
Very little information on the date of the deposits is available,
but it seems likely that the fauna is at least partly Holocene, a
hypothesis that is supported by the composition of the avifauna
in general and by the presence of Rattus rattus Linnaeus
(Wolf, 1938).