Eoholocene malacofauna (gastropoda, pulmonata) from a cave of National Park of Ubajara, Ceará state, Brazil

Abstract

The National Park of Ubajara presents the more important karstic relief of the State of Ceará, composed by nine limestone hills where were 14 caves are found. Among them, the Urso Fóssil cave stands out in the morro do Pendurado, where the skull and mandible of the bear Arctotherium brasiliense (Lund, 1840) was found in 1978. In this cave the first mollusk record of the State of Ceará with Eoholocene age was recently collected, which is reported in this paper. These specimens are gastropods represented by complete or fragmented shells that were removed through an excavation in a room called Sala da Entrada; the studied material is deposited at scientific collection of the Museu Dom José, Universidade Estadual Vale do Acaraú. Comparing anatomical observation of the characters and ornamental features, they were identified as belonging to families: Bulimulidae, Subulinidae and Odontostomidae. The taxa of gastropods suggest that the region of Ibiapaba has not undergone drastic climatic changes at least from the past 8.000 years, once the fauna reported here is similar to that currently found in the area.