Paleocene) Marine Deposits of Belisario Domínguez, Chiapas, Southeastern Mexico
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Palaeontologia Electronica palaeo-electronica.org Eekaulostomus cuevasae gen. and sp. nov., an ancient armored trumpetfish (Aulostomoidea) from Danian (Paleocene) marine deposits of Belisario Domínguez, Chiapas, southeastern Mexico Kleyton Magno Cantalice and Jesús Alvarado-Ortega ABSTRACT Eekaulostomus cuevasae gen. and sp. nov. is described and identified here as a new member of the superfamily Aulostomoidea. The single specimen known of this species is part of a newly fossil assemblage collected in the marine sediments belong- ing to the early Paleocene Tenejapa-Lacandón geological unit, exploited in the Belisa- rio Domínguez quarry, near Palenque town, State of Chiapas, southeastern Mexico. E. cuevasae represents the oldest aulostomoid as far known and the first fossil species of this superfamily collected in America. E. cuevasae differs from other aulostomoids in the presence of two spines preceding the soft rays of both dorsal and anal fins; the star-like scales covering the entire body and part of the snout; as well as the relative large number of principal rays in the caudal fin. The recognition of E. cuevasae as the stem group of Aulostomoidea increases the temporal and geographic distribution of this superfamily up to Danian and within the Caribbean region, when a large part of Chiapas was under the sea after the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction event. This finding also provides evidences suggesting the membership of Aulostomoidea within the order Gasterosteiformes, in which the scutes covering the trunk and the robust spines in unpaired fins are recurrent features. Kleyton Magno Cantalice. Departamento de Paleontología, Instituto de Geología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; Circuito de la Investigación, Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacán, Ciudad de México, 04510, México. [email protected] Jesús Alvarado-Ortega. Departamento de Paleontología, Instituto de Geología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México; Circuito de la Investigación, Ciudad Universitaria, Coyoacán, Ciudad de México, 04510, México. [email protected] Keywords: new species; Aulostomoidea; fossil; Paleocene; Chiapas; Mexico Submission: 13 May 2016 Acceptance: 10 October 2016 http://zoobank.org/F82FD739-14B2-4736-82DA-445FE7477A59 Cantalice, Kleyton Magno and Alvarado-Ortega, Jesús. 2016. Eekaulostomus cuevasae gen. and sp. nov., an ancient armored trumpetfish (Aulostomoidea) from Danian (Paleocene) marine deposits of Belisario Domínguez, Chiapas, southeastern Mexico. Palaeontologia Electronica 19.3.53A: 1-24 palaeo-electronica.org/content/2016/1659-ancient-armored-trumpetfish Copyright: © December 2016 Society of Vertebrate Paleontology. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CANTALICE & ALVARADO-ORTEGA: ANCIENT ARMORED TRUMPETFISH INTRODUCTION Besides, increasingly molecular phylogenetic studies have been explored the relationships of The superfamily Aulostomoidea is a highly Aulostomoidea and other acanthomorphs, resulting specialized group of marine acanthomorph fishes in important alternative hypotheses (Wilson and (Greenwood et al., 1966), which are widely distrib- Orr, 2011; Near et al., 2012, 2013; Betancur-R et uted along the tropical and subtropical seas al., 2013a, 2013b, 2015; Song et al., 2014), in (Wheeler, 1955; Fritzsche, 1976, 1981; Eschmeyer which this superfamily is an unnatural group, and et al., 2016; Froese and Pauly, 2016). Living aulo- its families Fistulariidae and Aulostomidae are stomoids are gathered in two families, two genera, placed apart as members of the order Syn- and seven species (Nelson et al., 2016); the family gnathiformes that also includes the Mullidae, Calli- Aulostomidae, commonly named as trumpet- onymidae, Draconnettidae, and Dactylopteridae. fishes, includes three species of the genus Aulo- Today, there is no consensus on this topic because stomus Lacépède, 1803, while the four species of results of the different molecular approaches are the genus Fistularia Linnaeus, 1758, represent the comparatively inconsistent and contradictory family Fistulariidae, also commonly known as cor- (Chen et al., 2003, 2014; Smith and Wheeler, netfishes. 2004; Dettai and Lecointre, 2005; Kawahara et al., According to the prevalent classification that 2008; Li et al., 2009; among others). includes the aulostomoids that are based on mor- The sisterhood relationship between fustulari- phological data (Keivany and Nelson, 2006); Aulo- ids and aulostomids into the suborder Aulosto- stomidae, Fistulariidae, and another nine families moidea and order Gasterosteiformes has been with living species constitute the order Gasterostei- maintained for a long time (e.g., Cuvier, 1816; Gill, formes. The fossil records of aulostomoids have 1872; Regan, 1909; Jungersen, 1910; Berg, 1940; been scarce; however, these point out that in the Wheeler, 1955; Greenwood et al., 1966; Pietsch, past this superfamily was much more diverse (e.g., 1978; Fritzsche, 1981; Johnson and Patterson, Kner and Steindachner, 1863; Blot, 1980; Ban- 1993; Orr, 1995; Nelson, 2006; Nelson et al., 2016; nikov, 1993, 2014; Carnevale et al., 2014; among among others). Unfortunately, a recent phyloge- others) including other taxa as: 1) The family Uros- netic study on Gasterosteiformes, purely based on phenidae (Gill, 1884) that probably incorporates morphological data of living species, shows that three species of the genus Urosphen Agassiz, this relationship is weak because it is based on a 1842 [U. fistularis Agassiz, 1842; U. dubius (Blain- combination of homoplasies, including characters ville, 1818), and U. attenuata Eastman, 1914], Uro- independently developed in other gasterostei- sphenopsis sagitta Danilʼchenko, 1968, as well as forms (Keivany and Nelson, 2006). Oligosphenopsis gracilis Parin, 1992. 2) Two fami- Morphological characters preserved in the lies named by Blot (1980), the monospecific Para- fossils are useful to understand the origin, early synarcualidae represented by Parasynarcualis diversification, and the multiple elusive details longirostris (Blainville, 1818) plus the Fistularioid- along the evolutionary history of problematic taxa. idae, in which two species described by Blot (1980) Up to now, phylogenetic studies have not exploited are included, Fistularioides veronensis and F. phyl- the huge potential data preserved in the fossils lolepis, as well as Pseudosyngnathus opistho- related to Aulostomoidea, which are known mainly pterus (Agassiz, 1833). 3) Additional extinct from Eocene (56-34 Ma) and Oligocene (34-23 members of the family Aulostomidae, as Aulosto- Ma) marine sediments along Europe, and exposed mus medius Weiler, 1920; A. fractus Danilʼchenko, in Germany, France, Denmark, and the emblematic 1960a; Eoaulostomus bolcensis (Blainville, 1818) Italian Lagersttäte site of Monte Bolca (Zigno, and E. gracilis Blot, 1980; Synhypuralis jungerseni, 1887; Blot, 1980; Micklich, 1998; Pharisat and Blot, 1980; S. banisteri Blot, 1980; Jungensenich- Micklich, 1998; Bonde et al., 2008; among others). thys elongatus Blot, 1980; Macroaulostomus In 2008, the Instituto Nacional de Antro- veronensis Blot, 1980; Tyleria necopinata Parin, pología e Historia (INAH) and the Universidad 1993; and Frauenweilerstomus synarcualis Parin Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) launched a and Micklich, 1996a. 4) The incertae sedis species paleontological-archaeological joint project to col- Aulostomoides tyleri Blot, 1980. 5) Extinct species lect and identify the fossils associated to the of Fistularia, including F. koenigi Agassiz, 1842; F. archaeological Maya city of Palenque. One of the licatae Sauvage, 1880; F. contermina successes achieved during the summer 2014 in Danil’chenko, 1960b; and Fistularia sp. (Girone et this project was the discovery of a peculiar, com- al., 2010; Pictet et al., 2013; among others). plete, and well-preserved aulostomoid fish in the 2 PALAEO-ELECTRONICA.ORG Belisario Domínguez quarry (Figure 1). This newly paleontological site of difficult access is a small outcrop of Paleocene (Danian age, 63Ma) marine sediments, which is located 9.5 km south of Palenque town and about 2 km north from the homonymous village, into the State of Chiapas, southeastern México (Alvarado-Ortega et al., 2015). Currently, the strata already exploited in this quarry hardly exceed the soil level; however, this has proven to be a promising fossiliferous site. In this quarry, the fossil bearing strata consists of marine parallel laminated marls and limestones that belong to the Tenejapa-Lacandón geological unit. The División del Norte quarry is another small quarry near Palenque that bears similar fossils on strata that also belong to this geological unit. The fish assemblage recovered in these quarries includes eels, herrings, pycnodonts, “serranids”, osteoglossids, gonorynchiforms, and other still unidentified teleostean fishes (Cuevas-García and FIGURE 1. Map of the Belisario Domínguez quarry, near Palenque, Chiapas, southeastern Mexico. Yellow Alvarado-Ortega, 2008, 2009; Alaniz-Galvan, areas into the map show the Paleocene Tenejapa- 2011; Alaniz-Galvan and Alvarado-Ortega, 2011; Lacadón geological unit. Solano-Templos and Alvarado-Ortega, 2013; Alvarado-Ortega et al., 2015; Than-Marchese et al., 2015). was lost by the quarry-worker. In the rescued part, The aim of the present paper is to provide an the fossil