Vertebrate biogeographic evidence for connections of the east and southeast Asian blocks with Gondwana

A review of the fossil‐vertebrate literature indicates fluctuating affinities between aquatic faunas of China and Australia during the Devonian Period. Within the South China Block, the close similarity of the highly endemic freshwater fish faunas located on the Yangtze and Huanan terranes demonstrate that these must have been juxtaposed in the mid‐Palaeozoic. Analysis of the Triassic tetrapods suggests the faunas of Australia were quite distinct from those of China and Thailand. Although this evidence points to the Permo‐Carboniferous as the time of separation between Australia and the various plates of southeastern Asia, unfortunately the vertebrate fossil record in these regions during those periods is so poor as to shed no direct light on the matter. One of the problems of plate motion where fossil vertebrate evidence has contributed the most is the Mesozoic position of India. Because the relevant data are of a positive nature rather than dependent on the absence of taxa, the inference from them that there was substantial faunal interchange between the subcontinent and more northern regions of Asia by the Late Cretaceous is well established.

Key words:

• Australia
• China
• Cretaceous
• Devonian
• fish
• India
• Tertiary
• tetrapods
• Thailand
• Triassic
• vertebrates