Abstract
A diverse assemblage of fish microremains is reported from the Virgilian (Gzhelian), Upper Pennsylvanian Finis Shale outcrop at Lost Creek Lake near Jacksboro (Texas, USA). The assemblage contains diverse remains of chondrichthyans, rare acanthodians and actinopterygians. The chondrichthyans are represented by a xenacanthimorph, ctenacanthiforms, symmoriiforms, an euselachian, a neoselachian, a petalodontiform, eugeneodontiforms, a helodontiform and euchondrocephalian taxa. The teeth of Bransonella dominate the chondrichthyan microremains. The occurrence of Bransonella lingulata in the Gzhelian Finis Shales of Texas is the youngest in the world. The assemblage includes widely distributed taxa of chondrichthyans. The chondrichthyan fauna from the Finis Shale outcrop differs from the rich faunas of the Kasimovian–Gzhelian from other regions such as New Mexico and Nebraska in the USA, Moscow, Samara and Volgograd regions of Russia, Spain, Germany and the Czech Republic by the dominance of bransonelliform remains and the set of diverse ctenacanthiforms and euchondrocephalians. The new assemblage of fishes demonstrates the presence of chondrichthyan taxa with different food specialisation in the Virgilian faunal community.
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Acknowledgements
Special thanks go to the Dallas Paleontological Society for their outstanding support during field work to collect samples in Texas by author BS. The authors are also grateful for assistance by N.S. Vlasenko (Research Park, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia) and R.A. Rakitov (Borissiak Paleontological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia) during SEM imaging, and W. Itano (University of Colorado, Boulder, USA) for the useful comments on euchondocephalians. We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions to improve the quality of the manuscript. The scientific research was performed at the Center for Geo-Environmental Research and Modelling (GEOMODEL), the Center for X-ray Diffraction Studies and the Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis of Research Park of St. Petersburg State University. This paper was supported by the Kazan Federal University Strategic Academic Leadership Program (PRIORITY-2030).
Funding
Barbara Seuss was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG-project grant number SE 2283/2–1) during fieldwork and is financed by the PaleoSynthesis project (Volkswagen Foundation). Alexander Ivanov was funded by the St. Petersburg State University, Russia (project No. 95439487).
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Ivanov, A.O., Seuss, B. Late Pennsylvanian fishes from the Finis Shales of North-Central Texas (USA). PalZ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12542-023-00679-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12542-023-00679-1