A Maeotian (Late Miocene) freshwater fish-fauna from Romania

Abstract

Isolated pharyngeal teeth, pectoral, dorsal and suborbital fish spines were unearthed in a new outcrop located on the right bank of the Prut River, at Fălciu, Romania. They document Late Miocene aquatic ecosystems of the Dacian basin. Seven taxa were identified and described, six of them belonging to the order Cypriniformes and one to Siluriformes. The Cobitidae is here firstly reported in the fossil record of Romania. All the fish teeth and skeletal remains are from representatives marking shallow water. The fossils were probably buried into sediments accumulated near the mouth of a rather fast-flowing river that drained into a brackish body of water, part of the Dacian basin. The composition of the fauna is similar to the coeval ones from the North (Ukraine and Republic of Moldova) and from the South (Turkey) of the Black Sea basin.