Review and New Data on the Port Kennedy Local Fauna and Flora (Late Irvingtonian), Valley Forge National Historical Park, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
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Abstract
A late Irvingtonian assemblage of fossils at Port Kennedy, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (today within the Valley Forge National Historical Park) was discovered in a filled solution feature first exposed in a quarry wall in 1870. The remnants of the deposit are buried today. Yielding specimens mostly of vertebrates, but including plants and beetle fragments, the deposit was well-studied by scientists of the late 1800s, most notably Edward Cope. In the last century, only systematically focused papers and reviews of Pleistocene faunas have discussed the Port Kennedy fossils. Mention of the plant material is made only in passing, and nothing more has been said of the (now missing) insect specimens. Furthermore, nothing has been discussed of the geology and taphonomy of the deposit and its fossils with the perspective of current geologic principles. This paper summarizes in this more modern view the known information about the deposit and its fossils. Revised and new information on taxonomy and status of specimens is provided, including new records and notice of the recovery of the holotype of the skunk Brachyprotoma obtusata (Cope, 1899) (Mammalia: Carnivora).
