A new sawshark, Pristiophorus laevis, from the eocene of Antarctica with comments on Pristiophorus lanceolatus

Autor(en)

Andrea Engelbrecht, Thomas Mörs, Marcelo Reguero, Jürgen Kriwet

Abstrakt

The highly fossiliferous Eocene deposits of the Antarctic Peninsula are among the most productive sites for fossil remains in the Southern Hemisphere and offer rare insights into high-latitude faunas during the Palaeogene. Chondrichthyans, which are represented by abundant isolated remains, seemingly dominate the marine assemblages. Eocene Antarctic sawsharks have only been known from few isolated rostral spines up to now, that were assigned to Pristiophorus lanceolatus. Here, we present the first oral teeth of a sawshark from the Eocene of Seymour Island and a re-evaluation of previously described Pristiophorus remains from Gondwana consisting exclusively of rostral spines. The holotype of Pristiophorus lanceolatus represents a single, abraded and insufficiently illustrated spine from the Oligocene of New Zealand. All other Cenozoic rostral spines assigned to this species are morphologically very indistinct and closely resemble those of living taxa. Consequently, we regard this species as dubious and introduce a new species, Pristiophorus laevis, based on oral teeth. The combination of dental characteristics of the new species makes it unique compared to all other described species based on oral teeth. Rostral spines from the Eocene of Seymour Island are assigned to this new species whereas those from other Cenozoic Gondwana localities remain ambiguous.

LSID urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:7177A373-527B-4315-85F6-25180DB5E087

Organisation(en)

Institut für Paläontologie

Externe Organisation(en)

Swedish Museum of Natural History, Museo de La Plata

Journal

Historical Biology

Band

29

Seiten

841-853

Anzahl der Seiten

13

ISSN

0891-2963

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1080/08912963.2016.1252761

Publikationsdatum

2017

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

105118 Paläontologie

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Allgemeine Agrar- und Biowissenschaften

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/6ac05545-2073-4bae-ab50-ec9d117e39ea