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Early Miocene Ponyfishes (Acanthuriformes, Leiognathidae) of the Carpathian Basin

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Abstract

The fossil record of ponyfishes (Leiognathidae) is documented by the presence of skeletal remains and otoliths in Europe, Africa and Asia. Here we describe in detail a set of skeletal imprints from the Early Miocene (Burdigalian) of Harta locality (Poland). These specimens are morphologically identical and similar in meristic values to Leiognathoides minutus recently known from the Great Caucasian Basin. The studied remains exhibit a number of characters allowing to place this species within leiognathids. Among them, there are five osteological synapomorphies of the family Leiognathidae, as well as characters allowing to nest L. minutus within the Acanthuriformes. We suggest that the Western Tethys may have acted as a center of origin for ponyfishes, from which they migrated into different parts of the Paratethys. Using a seaway between the Tethys and Indian Ocean, leiognathids invaded the Indo-West Pacific and became diverse there, however went extinct in the Paratethys during the middle Miocene. Our data additionally corroborate the hypothesis about close connection between the fish faunas of the Carpathian and Greater Caucasian basins, and the possibility of a faunal exchange between different parts of the Paratethys during the Early Miocene.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are thankful to P. Socha (University of Wrocław, Poland) for preparing the photographs of the studied specimens. A.F. Bannikov (Borissiak Palaeontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences) and N. Micklich (Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt, Germany) are acknowledged for fruitful discussion. We are sincerely thankful to M.V. Nazarkin (Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences) and G. Carnevale (Università degli Studi di Torino, Italy) for important suggestions that qualitatively improved the manuscript.

Funding

The work was carried out with the grant support of the project 0121U110402 of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine for research groups.

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  1. National Museum of Natural History, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine

    O. M. Kovalchuk

  2. Department of Palaeozoology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland

    O. M. Kovalchuk, E. Świdnicka & K. Stefaniak

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Kovalchuk, O.M., Świdnicka, E. & Stefaniak, K. Early Miocene Ponyfishes (Acanthuriformes, Leiognathidae) of the Carpathian Basin. Paleontol. J. 55, 421–428 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0031030121040092

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