Also known as Nsungwe Formation, Rukwa Basin

Where: Mbeya, Tanzania (8.9° S, 33.2° E: paleocoordinates 11.3° S, 29.9° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Songwe Member (Nsungwe Formation), Late/Upper Oligocene (28.4 - 23.0 Ma)

• The Nsungwe Formation belongs to the younger part of the infill of the Rukwe Rift Basin (Red Sandstone Group). It "is subdivided into the lower Utengule Member and upper Songwe Member, with the snake-bearing Songwe Member assigned a Late Oligocene (24.95 MY) age based on biostratigraphy, dated ash beds, and detrital zircon geochronology" (McCartney et al. 2014).

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: fluvial; red siliciclastic sediments

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils

Collection methods: mechanical,

• Snake material was mechanically prepared at the Ohio University Fossil Preparation and Imaging Facility.

•RRBP = Rukwa Rift Basin Project of the Tanzanian Antiquities Unit

Primary reference: J. A. McCartney, N. J. Stevens, and P. M. O’Connor. 2014. The Earliest Colubroid-Dominated Snake Fauna from Africa: Perspectives from the Late Oligocene Nsungwe Formation of Southwestern Tanzania. PLoS ONE 9(3):e90415 [J. Mueller/T. Liebrecht] more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 167429: authorized by Johannes Mueller, entered by Torsten Liebrecht on 17.03.2015, edited by Philip Mannion

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)