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A long-bodied centriscoid fish from the basal Eocene of Kabardino-Balkaria, northern Caucasus, Russia

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Abstract

The Paleocene–Eocene transition is of crucial interest for interpreting the Cenozoic evolutionary radiation of vertebrates. A substantial increase of the number of vertebrate families occurred between the Late Paleocene and Early Eocene, with the appearance of most of the representatives of extant lineages. Basal Eocene marine fish diversity is currently poorly known, exclusively restricted to two assemblages from Denmark and Turkmenistan, respectively. Exceptionally well-preserved articulated skeletal remains of fishes have recently been discovered from a basal Eocene sapropelitic layer exposed along the Kheu River in the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, northern Caucasus, Russia. Here, we report on Gerpegezhus paviai gen. et sp. nov., a new peculiar syngnathoid fish from this new Ciscaucasian locality. The morphological structure of the single available specimen suggests that it is the first long-bodied member of the superfamily Centriscoidea, representing the sole member of the new family Gerpegezhidae, which forms a sister pair with the extant family Centriscidae.

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Acknowledgements

This study was made possible with the help of the financial support provided by the Systematic Association (UK) to make excavations in Republic Kabardino-Balkaria in 2008. We thank E. Shcherbinina (Geological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow) for information about the Gerpegezh locality, W. Landini (Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università di Pisa, Pisa) and J.W. Orr (Alaska Fisheries Science Center, National Marine Fisheries Service, NOAA, Seattle) for useful suggestions and critical review of an early draft of the text, A.V. Mazin (Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow) for photographs and B. Villier (Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Torino, Torino) for technical support. We are much indebted to F. Giudice (Torino) for the improvement of the English. We thank three anonymous referees for careful reviews of the manuscript. The research of A.F.B. was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, grants n. 09-05-00170 and 12-04-00611. During the preparation of this work G.C. was supported by the MIUR grant 2009 “Paleobiogeografia e dinamica di popolazione nel tardo Miocene: nuove evidenze dal Mediterraneo centrale”. The names of the authors are in alphabetical order since each made a substantial contribution to this manuscript.

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  1. Borisyak Paleontological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Profsoyuznaya 123, Moscow, 117997, Russia

    Alexandre F. Bannikov

  2. Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università degli Studi di Torino, Via Valperga Caluso, 35, 10125, Torino, Italy

    Giorgio Carnevale

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  1. Alexandre F. Bannikov
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  2. Giorgio Carnevale
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Correspondence to Giorgio Carnevale.

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Communicated by: Sven Thatje

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Bannikov, A.F., Carnevale, G. A long-bodied centriscoid fish from the basal Eocene of Kabardino-Balkaria, northern Caucasus, Russia. Naturwissenschaften 99, 379–389 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-012-0912-6

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