A new elasmobranch fauna from the early Miocene of Sharbithat (Sultanate of Oman) reveals the teeth of an ancient fantail stingray

Here we describe a new elasmobranch assemblage consisting of isolated dental material from the Aquitanian near-shore marine deposits of the Shuwayr and Warak formations at Sharbithat, in eastern Sultanate of Oman. The faunal composition clearly indicates affinities to other early Miocene elasmobranch-bearing localities worldwide. This assemblage is predominantly composed of large and common pelagic sharks as well as teeth attributable to a new species of fantail stingray, Taeniurops tosii, as old as the oldest undisputable fossil records of Taeniurops. The study of this fossil assemblage presented here improves the knowledge of the ancient elasmobranchs that frequented the eastern Arabian coasts during the closure of the Neotethys and the birth of the Arabian Sea. DOI: 10.1344/GeologicaActa2022.20.

A new elasmobranch fauna from the early Miocene of Sharbithat (Sultanate of Oman) reveals the teeth of an ancient fantail stingray

Acknowledgement. We gratefully thank Jorge Carrillo-Briceño and Gloria Arratia for their constructive criticism and comments on the manuscript. We also wish to thank the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism of the Sultanate of Oman for granting us permission to carry out fieldwork along the Omani Arabian sea shores, with specific reference to H.E. Salim Mohammed Al Mahruqi, Minister; Mr. Sultan Said Al-Bakri, Director General for Archaeology; Mr. Khamis Al Asmi, Director of the Department of Excavations and Archaeological Studies; M. Ali Al Mashani of the Salalah department. We would like to thank the Consultative Commission for Excavations Abroad of the French Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs, the Agence Nationale de la Recherche with the NeoArabia Program (ANR-16-CE03-0007, CNRS, Inrap, MNHN) for funding the archaeological Mission «Archaeology of the Arabian Sheashores»Here we describe a new elasmobranch assemblage consisting of isolated dental material from the Aquitanian near-shore marine deposits of the Shuwayr and Warak formations at Sharbithat, in eastern Sultanate of Oman. The faunal composition clearly indicates affinities to other early Miocene elasmobranch-bearing localities worldwide. This assemblage is predominantly composed of large and common pelagic sharks as well as teeth attributable to a new species of fantail stingray, Taeniurops tosii, as old as the oldest undisputable fossil records of Taeniurops. The study of this fossil assemblage presented here improves the knowledge of the ancient elasmobranchs that frequented the eastern Arabian coasts during the closure of the Neotethys and the birth of the Arabian Sea

A close relative of the Amazon river dolphin in marine deposits: a new Iniidae from the late Miocene of Angola

Background A few odontocetes (echolocating toothed cetaceans) have been able to independently colonize freshwater ecosystems. Although some extant species of delphinids (true dolphins) and phocoenids (porpoises) at least occasionally migrate upstream of large river systems, they have close relatives in fully marine regions. This contrasts with the three odontocete families only containing extant species with a strictly freshwater habitat (Iniidae in South America, the recently extinct Lipotidae in China, and Platanistidae in southeast Asia). Among those, the fossil record of Iniidae includes taxa from freshwater deposits of South America, partly overlapping geographically with the extant Amazon river dolphin Inia geoffrensis, whereas a few marine species from the Americas were only tentatively referred to the family, leaving the transition from a marine to freshwater environment poorly understood. Methods Based on a partial odontocete skeleton including the cranium, discovered in late Miocene (Tortonian-Messinian) marine deposits near the estuary of the Cuanza River, Angola, we describe a new large iniid genus and species. The new taxon is compared to other extinct and extant iniids, and its phylogenetic relationships with the latter are investigated through cladistic analysis. Results and Discussion The new genus and species Kwanzacetus khoisani shares a series of morphological features with Inia geoffrensis, including the combination of a frontal boss with nasals being lower on the anterior wall of the vertex, the laterally directed postorbital process of the frontal, the anteroposterior thickening of the nuchal crest, and robust teeth with wrinkled enamel. As confirmed (although with a low support) with the phylogenetic analysis, this makes the new taxon the closest relative of I. geoffrensis found in marine deposits. The geographic provenance of K. khoisani, on the eastern coast of South Atlantic, suggests that the transition from the marine environment to a freshwater, Amazonian habitat may have occurred on the Atlantic side of South America. This new record further increases the inioid diversity during the late Miocene, a time interval confirmed here as the heyday for this superfamily. Finally, this first description of a Neogene cetacean from inland deposits of western sub-Saharan Africa reveals the potential of this large coastal area for deciphering key steps of the evolutionary history of modern cetaceans in the South Atlantic

First fossil record (Middle Miocene) of the viper shark Trigonognathus Mochizuki and Ohe, 1990, in the Mediterranean realm

The genus Trigonognathus Mochizuki and Ohe, 1990, is a monospecific taxon of `lantern sharks¿ (i.e., family Etmopteridae), a group of small-sized bioluminescent deep-sea chondrichthyans, ranging in mature male specimens between 42¿47 cm total length, and at least 52 cm for females (Ebert et al., 2021). This shark inhabits the upper continental slopes as well as the uppermost slope of seamounts, often at the bottom, at depths ranging between 250¿1000 m, but has been caught at 150 m and 270 m in deep open waters (Mochizuki and Ohe, 1990; Compagno et al., 2005; Ebert et al., 2021). Only two species have been described thus far, the extant species Trigonognathus kabeyai Mochizuki and Ohe, 1990, and the extinct ¿Trigonognathus virginiae from the middle Eocene of France (Cappetta and Adnet, 2001). Trigonognathus kabeyai exhibits a combination of morphological characteristics that are unique among Squaliformes, like a highly protrudable jaw articulation (Shirai and Okamura, 1992; Straube et al., 2010), and a lack of dignathic heterodonty. Additionally, the tearing-type dentition, and strong monognathic heterodonty with hypertrophied anterior teeth, differentiate it from the genus Squalus and Cirrigaleus (with cutting-type dentition), and Centroscyllium and Aculeola (with no monognathic heterodonty and clutching-type dentition) (Cappetta and Adnet, 2001). The geographic distribution of T. kabeyai is restricted to the Pacific Ocean, in the Wakayama and Tokushima coasts of Japan (Mochizuki and Ohe, 1990; Shirai and Okamura, 1992; Ebert et al., 2021), Taiwan (Ebert et al., 2013), and in the north-west of Hawaii (Wetherbee and Kajiura, 2000). However, the fossil record of the genus Trigonognathus indicates a broader geographic distribution in the past (Aguilera and Rodriguez de Aguilera, 2001; Cappetta and Adnet, 2001; Carrillo-Briceño et al., 2015). These findings include ¿T. virginiae from the middle Eocene of Landes (eastern Atlantic), southwestern France (Cappetta and Adnet, 2001), and two isolated teeth assigned to Trigonognathus sp. and Trigonognathus aff. kabeyai from the Upper Miocene of Panama (Carrillo-Briceño et al., 2015) and the Upper Miocene¿Lower Pliocene of Venezuela (Caribbean Sea) (Aguilera and Rodriguez de Aguilera, 2001), respectively. Given the apparent rarity of this elusive taxon, any new finding, especially in the fossil record, is of note and increases our knowledge of this genus. Herein we describe a Middle Miocene locality with the first known record of Trigonognathus in the Mediterranean realm (south-eastern Spain), which offers new insight into the paleoenvironmental and paleobiogeographic history of this shark. In addition, with the objective of providing new information about possible diagnostic characteristics of the genus, the first description of its internal tooth histology is provided

A historical vertebrate collection from the Middle Miocene of the Peruvian Amazon

The Miocene aquatic and terrestrial fossil record from western Amazonia constitute a clear evidence of the palaeoenvironmental diversity that prevailed in the area, prior to the establishment of the Amazon River drainage. During the Miocene, the region was characterized by a freshwater megawetland basin, influenced by episodic shallow-marine incursions. A fossil vertebrate collection from the middle Miocene strata of the Pebas Formation is here studied and described. This historical collection was recovered in 1912 along the banks of the Itaya River (Iquitos, Peru), during a scientific expedition led by two scientists of the University of Zurich, Hans Bluntschli and Bernhard Peyer. Our findings include a total of 34 taxa, including stingrays, bony fishes, turtles, snakes, crocodylians, and lizards. Fishes are the most abundant group in the assemblage (~ 23 taxa), including the first fossil record of the freshwater serrasalmids Serrasalmus, and Mylossoma, and the hemiodontid Hemiodus for the Pebas system, with the latter representing the first fossil be discovered for the entire Hemiodontidae. The presence of a representative of Colubroidea in the middle Miocene of Iquitos supports the hypothesis of arrival and dispersal of these snakes into South America earlier than previously expected. This fossil assemblage sheds light on the palaeoenvironments, and the geographical/temporal range of several aquatic/terrestrial lineages inhabiting the Amazonian region

A 60-million-year Cenozoic history of western Amazonian ecosystems in Contamana, eastern Peru

Weprovide a synopsis of ~60million years of life history in Neotropical lowlands, based on a comprehensive survey of the Cenozoic deposits along the Quebrada Cachiyacu near Contamana in PeruvianAmazonia. The 34 fossilbearing localities identified have yielded a diversity of fossil remains, including vertebrates,mollusks, arthropods, plant fossils, and microorganisms, ranging from the early Paleocene to the lateMiocene–?Pliocene (N20 successive levels). This Cenozoic series includes the base of the Huchpayacu Formation (Fm.; early Paleocene; lacustrine/ fluvial environments; charophyte-dominated assemblage), the Pozo Fm. (middle + ?late Eocene; marine then freshwater environments; most diversified biomes), and complete sections for the Chambira Fm. (late Oligocene–late early Miocene; freshwater environments; vertebrate-dominated faunas), the Pebas Fm. (late early to early late Miocene; freshwater environments with an increasing marine influence; excellent fossil record), and Ipururo Fm. (late Miocene–?Pliocene; fully fluvial environments; virtually no fossils preserved). At least 485 fossil species are recognized in the Contamana area (~250 ‘plants’, ~212 animals, and 23 foraminifera). Based on taxonomic lists from each stratigraphic interval, high-level taxonomic diversity remained fairly constant throughout themiddle Eocene–Miocene interval (8-12 classes), ordinal diversity fluctuated to a greater degree, and family/species diversity generally declined, with a drastic drop in the early Miocene. The Paleocene–?Pliocene fossil assemblages from Contamana attest at least to four biogeographic histories inherited from (i) Mesozoic Gondwanan times, (ii) the Panamerican realm prior to (iii) the time of South America’s Cenozoic “splendid isolation”, and (iv) Neotropical ecosystems in the Americas. No direct evidence of any North American terrestrial immigrant has yet been recognized in the Miocene record at Contamana.Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse

Les élasmobranches fossiles du Paléogène des Landes (Sud-Ouest, France) (implications dans la connaissance des communautés d'élasmobranches d'eaux profondes)

MONTPELLIER-BU Sciences (341722106) / SudocSudocFranceF

Biometric analysis of the teeth of fossil and Recent hexanchid sharks and its taxonomic implications

International audienceA biometric analysis of the lower teeth of Recent cow sharks (Hexanchidae) investigates the ontogenetic and phylogenetic aspects of the dental characters employed by many ichthyologists and palaeontologists. The dental characters currently used to separate two extant species of sixgill sharks (Hexanchus griseus and H. nakamurai) are analysed and the fossil record of their relatives reviewed. The main results suggest that the cusp number ratio (number of cusps per mm) is preferable to width of the lower tooth for inference of total body size, at least in species of Hexanchus. The presence of a serrated edge or an enlarged acrocone appears to depend on ontogeny and care must be taken when using these as taxomomic characters. Three Eocene species of Hexanchus, H. collinsonae, H. hookeri, and H. agassizi, and a new assemblage of fossil teeth from the late Ypresian/early Lutetian (Early/Middle Eocene) of south-western France, are also analysed. The first two of these species may be ontogenetic states of H. agassizi. Hexanchus agassizi, belonging to the vituliform lineage and closely related to the living H. nakamurai, is considered here to be the only species of Hexanchus in the Lower to Middle Eocene. A brief overview of Palaeogene Hexanchus, suggests no evidence of the grisiform group (closely related to living H. griseus) before the Late Eocene

New fossil triakid sharks from the early Eocene of Premontre, France, and comments on fossil record of the family

International audienceDuring the last two decades, an abundant selachian assemblage has been collected from the late Ypresian (NP12) fossiliferous sands of Premontre (Aisne, northern France) but has received little attention. Sharks of the family Triakidae (Carcharhiniformes) are particularly well represented and all are described and figured herein. Among them, two new species of the genus Galeorhinus are described: G. duchaussoisi sp. nov. and G. louisi sp. nov.; these are compared to the common Paleogene G. ypresiensis which is refigured. Another triakid taxon, the genus Gomphogaleus gen. nov., is described. Most of the triakids have been recorded elsewhere in the North Atlantic region, suggesting a wider distribution than expected for these small sharks during the Paleogene. The present paper updates the list of selachians from Premontre, bringing the number of taxa from 19 to 33 (including 22 sharks and 11 batoids) and improving our knowledge of the ancient North Atlantic Ypresian selachian fauna. Despite this vastly improved record, it is clear that fossil data are still very incomplete and insufficient for calibrating phylogenetic hypotheses of living forms. Review of the Premontre fauna shows that the Triakidae were much more diverse and broadly distributed than at present, suggesting that the limited distribution and low diversity of living forms is probably a recent phenomenon