A new mawsoniid coelacanth (Actinistia) from the Upper Cretaceous of Southern France |
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| Institution: | 1. School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1RJ, UK;2. Chengdu Center of China Geological Survey, Chengdu 610081, China;3. State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), Wuhan 430074, China;4. Key Laboratory of Evolutionary Systematics of Vertebrates, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, China |
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| Abstract: | Axelrodichthys megadromos sp. nov. is a coelacanth described based on a single specimen collected in the lower Campanian site of Ventabren motorway, Southern France. The new species is referred to the mawsoniids because of the ornamentation of the skull roof and of the proportionally wide supraorbital series. The specimen belongs to the Mawsonia-Axelrodichthys complex based on features present on the lower jaw and on the basisphenoid. The new species is referred to the genus Axelrodichthys because of proportions of its parietonasal shield and because of the arrangement of the posterior parietals relative to the supraorbitals. Autapomorphic characters, in particular on the parasphenoid, justify the inclusion of the specimen in a new species. The occurrence of a mawsoniid in the Ibero-Amorican Island that formed part of the European Archipelago in the terminal Cretaceous is an evidence of a dispersal event from the southern land masses. The occurrence of A. megadromos in the Campanian-Maastrichtian represents the last occurrence of mawsoniids worldwide, after a gap in the fossil record of about 30 million years. This belated occurrence of Axelrodichthys extends the time range of this genus to approximately 40 myr and suggests that this genus, together with its sister genus Mawsonia, were organisms with a slow morphologic evolution. |
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| Keywords: | Palaeobiogeography Campanian Osteology |
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