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An Extraordinary Gobioid Fish Fossil from Southern France
BACKGROUND: The classification of gobioid fishes is still under discussion. Several lineages, including the Eleotridae and Butidae, remain difficult to characterize because synapomorphies are rare (Eleotridae) or have not yet been determined (Butidae). Moreover, the fossil record of these groups is...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3655028/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23691158 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0064117 |
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author | Gierl, Christoph Reichenbacher, Bettina Gaudant, Jean Erpenbeck, Dirk Pharisat, André |
author_facet | Gierl, Christoph Reichenbacher, Bettina Gaudant, Jean Erpenbeck, Dirk Pharisat, André |
author_sort | Gierl, Christoph |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: The classification of gobioid fishes is still under discussion. Several lineages, including the Eleotridae and Butidae, remain difficult to characterize because synapomorphies are rare (Eleotridae) or have not yet been determined (Butidae). Moreover, the fossil record of these groups is scarce. RESULTS: Exceptionally well-preserved fish fossils with otoliths in situ from uppermost Oligocene sediments (≈23–24 Mio. y. ago) in Southern France provide the most in-depth description of a fossil gobioid to date. The species was initially described as Cottus aries Agassiz, then transferred to †Lepidocottus Sauvage, and subsequently assigned to Gobius. Based on a comparative analysis of meristic, osteological and otolith data, this species most likely is a member of the family Butidae. This discovery is important because it represents the first record of a fossil butid fish based on articulated skeletons from Europe. SIGNIFICANCE: The Butidae and Eleotridae are currently distributed in W-Africa, Madagascar, Asia and Australia, but they do not appear in Europe and also not in the Mediterranean Sea. The new results indicate that several species of the Butidae thrived in Europe during the Oligocene and Early Miocene. Similar to the recent Butidae and Eleotridae, these fishes were adapted to a wide range of salinities and thrived in freshwater, brackish and marginal marine habitats. The fossil Butidae disappeared from Europe and the Mediterranean and Paratethys areas during the Early Miocene, due probably to their lack of competitiveness compared to other Gobioidei that radiated during this period of time. In addition, this study documents the great value of otoliths for gobioid systematics. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3655028 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-36550282013-05-20 An Extraordinary Gobioid Fish Fossil from Southern France Gierl, Christoph Reichenbacher, Bettina Gaudant, Jean Erpenbeck, Dirk Pharisat, André PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: The classification of gobioid fishes is still under discussion. Several lineages, including the Eleotridae and Butidae, remain difficult to characterize because synapomorphies are rare (Eleotridae) or have not yet been determined (Butidae). Moreover, the fossil record of these groups is scarce. RESULTS: Exceptionally well-preserved fish fossils with otoliths in situ from uppermost Oligocene sediments (≈23–24 Mio. y. ago) in Southern France provide the most in-depth description of a fossil gobioid to date. The species was initially described as Cottus aries Agassiz, then transferred to †Lepidocottus Sauvage, and subsequently assigned to Gobius. Based on a comparative analysis of meristic, osteological and otolith data, this species most likely is a member of the family Butidae. This discovery is important because it represents the first record of a fossil butid fish based on articulated skeletons from Europe. SIGNIFICANCE: The Butidae and Eleotridae are currently distributed in W-Africa, Madagascar, Asia and Australia, but they do not appear in Europe and also not in the Mediterranean Sea. The new results indicate that several species of the Butidae thrived in Europe during the Oligocene and Early Miocene. Similar to the recent Butidae and Eleotridae, these fishes were adapted to a wide range of salinities and thrived in freshwater, brackish and marginal marine habitats. The fossil Butidae disappeared from Europe and the Mediterranean and Paratethys areas during the Early Miocene, due probably to their lack of competitiveness compared to other Gobioidei that radiated during this period of time. In addition, this study documents the great value of otoliths for gobioid systematics. Public Library of Science 2013-05-15 /pmc/articles/PMC3655028/ /pubmed/23691158 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0064117 Text en © 2013 Gierl et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 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 properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Gierl, Christoph Reichenbacher, Bettina Gaudant, Jean Erpenbeck, Dirk Pharisat, André An Extraordinary Gobioid Fish Fossil from Southern France |
title | An Extraordinary Gobioid Fish Fossil from Southern France |
title_full | An Extraordinary Gobioid Fish Fossil from Southern France |
title_fullStr | An Extraordinary Gobioid Fish Fossil from Southern France |
title_full_unstemmed | An Extraordinary Gobioid Fish Fossil from Southern France |
title_short | An Extraordinary Gobioid Fish Fossil from Southern France |
title_sort | extraordinary gobioid fish fossil from southern france |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3655028/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23691158 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0064117 |
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