Acta Palaeontologica Polonica

Neoselachian remains (Chondrichthyes, Elasmobranchii) from the Middle Jurassic of SW Germany and NW Poland

Jürgen Kriwet

Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 48 (4), 2003: 583-594

New neoselachian remains from the Middle Jurassic of SW Germany and NW Poland are described. The locality of Weilen unter den Rinnen in SW Germany yielded only few orectolobiform teeth from the Aalenian representing at least one new genus and species, Folipistrix digitulus, which is assigned to the orectolobiforms and two additional orectolobiform teeth of uncertain affinities. The tooth morphology of Folipistrix gen. nov. indicates a cutting dentition and suggests specialised feeding habits. Neoselachians from Bathonian and Callovian drill core samples from NW Poland produced numerous selachian remains. Most teeth are damaged and only the crown is preserved. Few identifiable teeth come from uppermost lower to lower middle Callovian samples. They include a new species, Synechodus porogatus, and rare teeth attributed to Palaeobrachaelurus sp., Pseudospinax? sp., Protospinax cf. annectans Woodward, 1919, two additional but unidentifiable Protospinax spp. and Squalogaleus sp. Scyliorhinids are represented only by few isolated tooth crowns. No batoid remains have been recovered. The two assemblages contribute to the knowledge about early neoselachian distribution and diversity.

Key words: Chondrichthyes, Neoselachii, Jurassic, Germany, Poland, taxonomy, diversity.

Jürgen Kriwet [juergen.kriwet@bristol.ac.uk], Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Wills Memorial Building, Queen’s Road, Bristol BS8 1RJ, United Kingdom.


This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (for details please see creativecommons.org), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.