A paraclupeid fish (Teleostei, Clupeomorpha, Ellimmichthyiformes) from the Eocene of Monte Bolca: the youngest marine record of double-armored herrings

Autor(en)

Giorgio Carnevale, Giuseppe Marrama, Alexandre Bannikov, Jürgen Kriwet

Abstrakt

Double-armored herrings of the order Ellimmichthyiformes constitute an extinct clade of clupeomorph fishes with a broad paleogeographic and paleoenvironmental distribution in marine, estuarine and freshwater deposits worldwide. This clade comprises more than 40 species spanning from the Early Cretaceous to the Middle Eocene. After the end-Cretaceous mass extinction and until their final extinction, double-armored herrings experienced a drastic drop in their diversity and disparity, with the Paleogene taxa being restricted in the freshwaters of North and South America and China. A new double-armored herring is documented based on a single
partially complete specimen from the Early Eocene Pesciara site of the Monte Bolca Konservat-Lagerstätte, north-eastern Italy. The fossil is characterized by a unique combination of features that supports its recognition as a new genus and species of the family Paraclupeidae, including ornamentation of the skull bones, medial fusion of the contralateral halves of the neural arches of the abdominal vertebrae, presence of teeth on the endopterygoid, parhypural fused to the first preural centrum, presence of a short series of six predorsal scutes increasing in size posteriorly, and postpelvic scutes bearing very prominent spines. The phylogenetic analysis (62 morphological characters coded for 32 taxa) suggests that new paraclupeid taxon from Monte
Bolca documented is closely related to the Early Cretaceous freshwater genus Ellimmichthys from the Western Gondwana rift basins. Moreover, it represents the youngest marine occurrence of the family Paraclupeidae and, more generally, of the order Ellimmichthyiformes, suggesting that the shallow marine biotopes of the western Tethys might have favoured the persistence of certain fish lineages that were severely affected by the end-Cretaceous mass extinction.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Paläontologie

Externe Organisation(en)

Università degli Studi di Torino, Russian Academy of Sciences

Seiten

79-79

Anzahl der Seiten

1

Publikationsdatum

2018

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

105118 Paläontologie

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 14 – Leben unter Wasser

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/3c909f9b-cfc2-4391-98a3-96a81673f49e