Tuscahoma Formation
The Tuscahoma Formation or Tuscahoma Sand is a geologic formation in Mississippi and Alabama, United States. It preserves fossils dating back to the early Paleogene period, from the Late Paleocene and Early Eocene. It was primarily deposited in a marine habitat, but one Wasatchian-aged locality near Meridian, Mississippi was deposited in an estuarine habitat that preserves a significant terrestrial vertebrate fauna, known as the "Red Hot local fauna". It preserves one of the most diverse early Eocene mammalian faunas from eastern North America, roughly contemporaneous with the Willwood Formation of Wyoming.
Vertebrate paleofauna
Cartilaginous fishes
Based on the Paleobiology Database:Ray-finned fishes
Based on the Paleobiology Database:Reptiles
Based on the Paleobiology Database:Mammals
The Tuscahoma Formation preserves a diversity of earliest Eocene-aged mammals. Almost all mammals are known only from isolated teeth. There appear to be significant differences in the faunal composition between the Tuscahoma Formation and the contemporaneous Bighorn Basin of the western US, indicating some level of provincialism in North American mammal species assemblages of the time. The formation appears to have been biased against the preservation of large-sized mammals, meaning that the majority of mammal remains from the formation are of smaller taxa.Based on the Paleobiology Database and Dawson & Beard :