Palaeontologia Electronica palaeo-electronica.org New occurrences of Belonostomus (Teleostomorpha: Aspidorhynchidae) from the Late Cretaceous of the North American Gulf Coastal Plain, USA Nathan E. Van Vranken, Christopher Fielitz, and Jun A. Ebersole ABSTRACT This research reinforces the poorly documented Cretaceous record of the aspido- rhynchid fish Belonostomus found in the North American Gulf Coastal Plain. This unique fish has gone mostly unnoticed in fossil collections due to the heightened diver- sity and popularity of other Cretaceous teleosts. Six new specimens are documented from various fossil sites in Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama. Most of these fossil locali- ties have not produced aspidorhynchid material until now and help bridge the gap in records between the Lower and Upper Cretaceous stratigraphic records of the North American continent. The inclusion of these new Belonostomus records also helps to further our understanding of this enigmatic fish. Nathan E. Van Vranken. Division of STEM, Potomac State College, 101 Fort Ave, Keyser, West Virginia, 26762, USA.
[email protected] Christopher Fielitz. Biology Department, Emory & Henry College, P.O. Box 947, Emory, Virginia 24327, USA.
[email protected] Jun A. Ebersole. McWane Science Center, 200 19th St N, Birmingham, Alabama, 35203, USA.
[email protected] Keywords: Cretaceous; Aspidorhynchiformes; Gulf Coast; Alabama; Mississippi; Texas Submission: 19 March 2019. Acceptance: 16 August. 2019 INTRODUCTION consumed planktonics or other small fish (Wain- wright and Barton, 1995; Cavin, 2002; Friedman, Belonostomus is an apidorhynchyid teleosteo- 2009; Kogan and Licht, 2013) and were probably a morph fish found within marine paleocommunities prey item for larger fishes and marine reptiles that of the llate Mesozoic (Arratia, 2001).