scholarly journals Taxonomy and biostratigraphy of the elasmobranchs and bony fishes (Chondrichthyes and Osteichthyes) of the lower-to-middle Eocene (Ypresian to Bartonian) Claiborne Group in Alabama, USA, including an analysis of otoliths

Author(s):  
Jun A. Ebersole ◽  
David J. Cicimurri ◽  
Gary L. Stringer

The Tallahatta Formation, Lisbon Formation, and Gosport Sand are the three lithostratigraphic units that make up the lower-to-middle Eocene Claiborne Group. In Alabama, these marine units are among the most fossiliferous in the state and a long history of scattered reports have attempted to document their fossil diversity. In this study, we examined 20931 elasmobranch and bony fish elements, including otoliths, derived from Claiborne Group units in Alabama and identified 115 unequivocal taxa. Among the taxa identified, one new species is described, Carcharhinus mancinae sp. nov., and Pseudabdounia gen. nov. is a new genus erected to include two species formerly placed within Abdounia Capatta, 1980. New taxonomic combinations proposed include Pseudabdounia claibornensis (White, 1956) gen. et comb. nov., Pseudabdounia recticona (Winkler, 1874) gen. et comb. nov., Physogaleus alabamensis (Leriche, 1942) comb. nov., and Eutrichiurides plicidens (Arambourg, 1952) comb. nov. We also report the first North American paleobiogeographic occurrences of Aturobatis aff. A. aquensis Adnet, 2006, Brachycarcharias atlasi (Arambourg, 1952), Eutrichiurides plicidens comb. nov., Galeorhinus louisi Adnet & Cappetta, 2008, Ginglymostoma maroccanum Noubhani & Cappetta, 1997, Gymnosarda sp., Mennerotodus sp., Rhizoprionodon ganntourensis (Arambourg, 1952), Stenoscyllium aff. S. priemi Noubhani & Cappetta, 1997, Trichiurus oshosunensis White, 1926, and the first North American occurrence for a fossil member of the Balistidae Risso, 1810. Our sample also included 26 taxa that represented first paleobiogeographic occurrences for Alabama, including Abdounia beaugei (Arambourg, 1935), Albula eppsi White, 1931, Ariosoma nonsector Nolf & Stringer, 2003, Anisotremus? sp., Anomotodon sp., Brachycarcharias twiggsensis (Case, 1981), Burnhamia daviesi (Woodward, 1889), Eoplinthicus yazooensis Capetta & Stringer, 2002, Galeorhinus ypresiensis (Casier, 1946), Gnathophis meridies (Frizzell & Lamber, 1962), Haemulon? obliquus (Müller, 1999), Hypolophodon sylvestris (White, 1931), Malacanthus? sulcatus (Koken, 1888), Meridiania cf. M. convexa Case, 1994, Palaeocybium proosti (Storms, 1897), Paraconger sector (Koken, 1888), Paralbula aff. P. marylandica Blake, 1940, Phyllodus toliapicus Agassiz, 1844, Propristis schweinfurthi Dames, 1883, Pycnodus sp., Pythonichthys colei (Müller, 1999), Scomberomorus stormsi (Leriche, 1905), Signata stenzeli Frizzell & Dante, 1965, and Signata nicoli Frizzell & Dante, 1965, and the first Paleogene occurrences in Alabama of a member of the Gobiidae Cuvier, 1816. A biostratigraphic analysis of our sample showed stratigraphic range extensions for several taxa, including the first Bartonian occurrences of Eoplinthicus yazooensis, Jacquhermania duponti (Winkler, 1876), Meridiania cf. M. convexa, Phyllodus toliapicus, and “Rhinobatos” bruxelliensis (Jaekel, 1894), range extensions into the late Ypresian and Bartonian for Tethylamna dunni Cappetta & Case, 2016 and Scoliodon conecuhensis Cappetta & Case, 2016, the first late Ypresian records of Galeorhinus louisi, the first Lutetian occurrence of Gymnosarda Gill, 1862, and a range extension for Fisherichthys aff. F. folmeri Weems, 1999 into the middle Bartonian. Larger biostratigraphic and evolutionary trends are also documented, such as the acquisition of serrations in Otodus spp., possible population increases for the Rhinopterinae Jordan & Evermann, 1896 and Carcharhiniformes Compagno, 1973 in the Bartonian, and the apparent diversification of the Tetraodontiformes Berg, 1940 during the same stage. This study helps better our understanding of early-to-middle Eocene elasmobranch and bony fish diversity, paleobiogeography, and biostratigraphy in the Gulf Coastal Plain of North America.

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. 20200735
Author(s):  
Hussam Zaher ◽  
Krister T. Smith

Extant large constrictors, pythons and boas, have a wholly allopatric distribution that has been interpreted largely in terms of vicariance in Gondwana. Here, we describe a stem pythonid based on complete skeletons from the early-middle Eocene of Messel, Germany. The new species is close in age to the divergence of Pythonidae from North American Loxocemus and corroborates a Laurasian origin and dispersal of pythons. Remarkably, it existed in sympatry with the stem boid Eoconstrictor . These occurrences demonstrate that neither dispersal limitation nor strong competitive interactions were decisive in structuring biogeographic patterns early in the history of large, hyper-macrostomatan constrictors and exemplify the synergy between phylogenomic and palaeontological approaches in reconstructing past distributions.


1994 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 57-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Patterson

Bony fishes or osteichthyans comprise two main monophyletic groups: the actinopterygians (rayfins, including the staples of the fish market and aquarium) and sarcopterygians (lobefins, fringefins or tasselfins, including lungfishes, coelacanths, and, perhaps unexpectedly or inconveniently, all land vertebrates or tetrapods). In the broadest terms, the two groups have similar histories, each with beginnings in the late Silurian or earliest Devonian, each with a primary radiation in the late Devonian and Mississippian, a secondary radiation in the Mesozoic, and a major Tertiary radiation, and each with an extant diversity of roughly 25,000 species (Nelson, 1994, p. 2). The remainder of this course (eight topics) is devoted to sarcopterygians, so I shall give almost all my space to the other half of bony fish diversity, the actinopterygians.


2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-30
Author(s):  
Matt Sheedy

I interviewed Russell McCutcheon back in March 2015, about his new role as president of the North American Association for the Study of Religion (NAASR), asking him about the history of the organization, goals for his tenure, and developments for NAASR’s upcoming conference in Atlanta in November 2015.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 1-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Murphey ◽  
K.E. Townsend ◽  
Anthony Friscia ◽  
James Westgate ◽  
Emmett Evanoff ◽  
...  

The Bridger Formation is restricted to the Green River Basin in southwest Wyoming, and the Uinta and Duchesne River Formations are located in the Uinta Basin in Utah. These three rock units and their diverse fossil assemblages are of great scientific importance and historic interest to vertebrate paleontologists. Notably, they are also the stratotypes from oldest to youngest for the three middle Eocene North American Land Mammal Ages—the Bridgerian, Uintan, and Duchesnean. The fossils and sediments of these formations provide a critically important record of biotic, environmental, and climatic history spanning approximately 10 million years (49 to 39 Ma). This article provides a detailed field excursion through portions of the Green River and Uinta Basins that focuses on locations of geologic, paleontologic, and historical interest. In support of the field excursion, we also provide a review of current knowledge of these formations with emphasis on lithostratigraphy, biochronology, depositional, and paleoenvironmental history, and the history of scientific exploration.


2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kella

This article examines the appropriation and redirection of the Gothic in two contemporary, Native-centered feature films that concern a history that can be said to haunt many Native North American communities today: the history of Indian boarding schools. Georgina Lightning’s Older than America (2008) and Kevin Willmott’s The Only Good Indian (2009) make use of Gothic conventions and the figures of the ghost and the vampire to visually relate the history and horrors of Indian boarding schools. Each of these Native-centered films displays a cinematic desire to decenter Eurocentric histories and to counter mainstream American genres with histories and forms of importance to Native North American peoples. Willmott’s film critiques mythologies of the West and frontier heroism, and Lightning attempts to sensitize non-Native viewers to contemporary Native North American concerns while also asserting visual sovereignty and affirming spiritual values.


Author(s):  
Jonathan Hehn

This chapter outlines the history of Presbyterian worship practice from the sixteenth century to the present, with a focus on North American Presbyterians. Tracing both their hymnody and their liturgy ultimately to John Calvin, Presbyterian communions have a distinct heritage of worship inherited from the Church of Scotland via seventeenth-century Puritans. Long marked by metrical psalmody and guided by the Westminster Directory, Presbyterian worship underwent substantial changes in the nineteenth century. Evangelical and liturgical movements led Presbyterians away from a Puritan visual aesthetic, into the use of nonscriptural hymnody, and toward a recovery of liturgical books. Mainline North American and Scottish Presbyterians solidified these trends in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries; however, conservative North American denominations and some other denominations globally continue to rely heavily on the use of a worship directory and metrical psalmody.


1972 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. McManus

This study of Indian behavior in the fur trade is offered more as a report of a study in progress than a completed piece of historical research. In fact, the research has barely begun. But in spite of its unfinished state, the tentative results of the work I have done to this point may be of some interest as an illustration of the way in which the recent revival of analytical interest in institutions may be used to develop an approach to the economic history of the fur trade.


1980 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
James T. Teller ◽  
Mark M. Fenton

The history of Late Wisconsinan glaciation in southwestern Manitoba has been established by identifying and correlating ice-laid lithostratigraphic units in the subsurface. Five Late Wisconsinan tills are defined on the basis of their texture, mineralogic composition, and stratigraphic position. These new formations are, from youngest to oldest, Marchand, Whitemouth Lake, Roseau, Senkiw, and Whiteshell Formations.Late Wisconsinan ice first invaded southeastern Manitoba 22 000 to 24 000 years ago. This Laurentide glacier advanced from the northeast across the Precambrian Shield and deposited the sandy Whiteshell and Senkiw tills, which contain abundant Precambrian rock fragments and minerals and few Paleozoic carbonate grains. Shortly after this, Keewatin ice advanced from the northwest over Paleozoic carbonate rocks, depositing the loamy carbonate-rich Roseau Formation throughout most of the area. This ice remained over southeastern Manitoba until after 13 500 years ago, when it rapidly retreated northward with Lake Agassiz on its heels. Two brief glacial readvances occurred. The first overrode Lake Agassiz lacustrine sediment as far south as central North Dakota shortly after about 13 000 years ago. The clayey Whitemouth Lake till was deposited in southern Manitoba at this time. After a rapid retreat, the ice briefly pushed southward over southeastern Manitoba about 12 000 years ago to just south of the International Boundary. The sandy carbonate-rich Marchand Formation was deposited at this time as the ice overrode its own sandy outwash. By 11 000 years ago, ice had disappeared from southeastern Manitoba.


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