Diversity of gobioid fishes in the late middle Miocene of northern Moldova, Eastern Paratethys \u2013 part I: an extinct clade of Lesueurigobius look-alikes

Bettina Reichenbacher,Alexander F Bannikov

doi:10.1007/s12542-021-00573-8

Abstract

Studies of otoliths suggest that Gobioidei, which are among the most species-rich groups of modern-day vertebrates, were prominent elements of late middle Miocene (early Sarmatian sensu lato) fish faunas in Europe and Western Asia. However, few complete skeletons have come to light. Here, we report an assemblage of six marine gobiid species, based on skeletons preserved with otoliths in situ, from the lower Volhynian (lower Sarmatian s.l.) of Karpov Yar, Naslavcea, northern Moldova (Eastern Paratethys). Previously only one of these species had been reported from the Central Paratethys, based on its otoliths alone. Five new species representing four new genera are described: †Katyagobius prikryli gen. et sp. nov., Pseudolesueurigobius manfredi gen. et sp. nov., †Sarmatigobius compactus gen. et sp. nov., †Yarigobius decoratus gen. et sp. nov., and †Y. naslavcensis gen. et sp. nov. All six species share the following set of characters, suggesting that they represent a monophyletic clade: 27–29 vertebrae (of which 10 are abdominal); spines of first dorsal fin distally filamentous; second dorsal fin with spine and 14–16 soft rays; anal fin with spine and 13–15 soft rays; caudal fin longish-to-lanceolate; otoliths (sagittae) with rounded, trapezoid-to-squarish shape. Their skeletal features suggest that they are closely related to Lesueurigobius Whitley, 1950, but the otoliths preserved in situ do not support such a classification. The new fossils most likely represent a stem lineage of the European Aphia lineage, and indicate that the diversity of gobiid lineages 12 million years ago differed clearly from that observed today.

Highlights

The middle Miocene of Europe and Asia was a time of palaeogeographic reorganizations and fluctuating environments, due to the orogeny and uplift of the Handling Editor: Mike Reich.Alpine-Himalayan mountain chains and global climate change (Zachos et al 2001)
They share the following suite of characters: ten abdominal vertebrae, a total vertebrae number that varies from 27 to 29; two relatively to strongly widely spaced dorsal fins; distally filamentous spines of the first dorsal fin; a spine and 14–16 soft rays in the second dorsal fin (D2); a spine and 13–15 soft rays in the anal fin; a longish-to-lanceolate caudal fin; and rounded, trapezoid-to-squarish sagittae without prominent projections and a ventral part that is slightly wider than the dorsal part
The present study is the first part of a project on the fossil gobioid fishes from the lower Volhynian strata exposed at Karpov Yar, Naslavcea, northern Moldova, which formed part of the western region of the Eastern Paratethys at that time

Summary

Introduction

Alpine-Himalayan mountain chains and global climate change (Zachos et al 2001) These changes affected the marine environments of the large inland seas that covered Central and Eastern Europe and Western Asia at that time, i.e., the Central Paratethys (Pannonian Basin) and the Eastern Paratethys (Black Sea or Euxinian Basin) (Popov et al 2004; Harzhauser and Piller 2007; Kováč et al 2017). 12.6 Ma), the Central Paratethys became isolated due to a global fall in sea level and the final stage of the Carpathian orogeny (Piller and Harzhauser 2005; Kováč et al 2017; Fig. 2) In both the Central and Eastern Paratethys, the beginning of the Sarmatian (s.s.) and Volhynian stages, respectively, was characterized by a transgression, during

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