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The first late cretaceous mawsoniid coelacanth (Sarcopterygii: Actinistia) from North America: Evidence of a lineage of extinct ‘living fossils’

Today, the only living genus of coelacanth, Latimeria is represented by two species along the eastern coast of Africa and in Indonesia. This sarcopterygian fish is nicknamed a "living fossil", in particular because of its slow evolution. The large geographical distribution of Latimeria may...

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Autores principales: Cavin, Lionel, Toriño, Pablo, Van Vranken, Nathan, Carter, Bradley, Polcyn, Michael J., Winkler, Dale
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8584698/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34762682
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259292
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author Cavin, Lionel
Toriño, Pablo
Van Vranken, Nathan
Carter, Bradley
Polcyn, Michael J.
Winkler, Dale
author_facet Cavin, Lionel
Toriño, Pablo
Van Vranken, Nathan
Carter, Bradley
Polcyn, Michael J.
Winkler, Dale
author_sort Cavin, Lionel
collection PubMed
description Today, the only living genus of coelacanth, Latimeria is represented by two species along the eastern coast of Africa and in Indonesia. This sarcopterygian fish is nicknamed a "living fossil", in particular because of its slow evolution. The large geographical distribution of Latimeria may be a reason for the great resilience to extinction of this lineage, but the lack of fossil records for this genus prevents us from testing this hypothesis. Here we describe isolated bones (right angular, incomplete basisphenoid, fragments of parasphenoid and pterygoid) found in the Cenomanian Woodbine Formation in northeast Texas that are referred to the mawsoniid coelacanth Mawsonia sp. In order to assess the impact of this discovery on the alleged characteristic of "living fossils" in general and of coelacanths in particular: 1) we compared the average time duration of genera of ray-finned fish and coelacanth in the fossil record; 2) we compared the biogeographic signal from Mawsonia with the signal from the rest of the vertebrate assemblage of the Woodbine formation; and 3) we compared these life traits with those of Latimeria. The stratigraphical range of Mawsonia is at least 50 million years. Since Mawsonia was a fresh, brackish water fish with probably a low ability to cross large sea barriers and because most of the continental components of the Woodbine Fm vertebrate assemblage exhibit Laurasian affinities, it is proposed that the Mawsonia’s occurrence in North America is more likely the result of a vicariant event linked to the break-up of Pangea rather than the result of a dispersal from Gondwana. The link between a wide geographic distribution and the resilience to extinction demonstrated here for Mawsonia is a clue that a similar situation existed for Latimeria, which allowed this genus to live for tens of millions of years.
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spelling pubmed-85846982021-11-12 The first late cretaceous mawsoniid coelacanth (Sarcopterygii: Actinistia) from North America: Evidence of a lineage of extinct ‘living fossils’ Cavin, Lionel Toriño, Pablo Van Vranken, Nathan Carter, Bradley Polcyn, Michael J. Winkler, Dale PLoS One Research Article Today, the only living genus of coelacanth, Latimeria is represented by two species along the eastern coast of Africa and in Indonesia. This sarcopterygian fish is nicknamed a "living fossil", in particular because of its slow evolution. The large geographical distribution of Latimeria may be a reason for the great resilience to extinction of this lineage, but the lack of fossil records for this genus prevents us from testing this hypothesis. Here we describe isolated bones (right angular, incomplete basisphenoid, fragments of parasphenoid and pterygoid) found in the Cenomanian Woodbine Formation in northeast Texas that are referred to the mawsoniid coelacanth Mawsonia sp. In order to assess the impact of this discovery on the alleged characteristic of "living fossils" in general and of coelacanths in particular: 1) we compared the average time duration of genera of ray-finned fish and coelacanth in the fossil record; 2) we compared the biogeographic signal from Mawsonia with the signal from the rest of the vertebrate assemblage of the Woodbine formation; and 3) we compared these life traits with those of Latimeria. The stratigraphical range of Mawsonia is at least 50 million years. Since Mawsonia was a fresh, brackish water fish with probably a low ability to cross large sea barriers and because most of the continental components of the Woodbine Fm vertebrate assemblage exhibit Laurasian affinities, it is proposed that the Mawsonia’s occurrence in North America is more likely the result of a vicariant event linked to the break-up of Pangea rather than the result of a dispersal from Gondwana. The link between a wide geographic distribution and the resilience to extinction demonstrated here for Mawsonia is a clue that a similar situation existed for Latimeria, which allowed this genus to live for tens of millions of years. Public Library of Science 2021-11-11 /pmc/articles/PMC8584698/ /pubmed/34762682 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259292 Text en © 2021 Cavin et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Cavin, Lionel
Toriño, Pablo
Van Vranken, Nathan
Carter, Bradley
Polcyn, Michael J.
Winkler, Dale
The first late cretaceous mawsoniid coelacanth (Sarcopterygii: Actinistia) from North America: Evidence of a lineage of extinct ‘living fossils’
title The first late cretaceous mawsoniid coelacanth (Sarcopterygii: Actinistia) from North America: Evidence of a lineage of extinct ‘living fossils’
title_full The first late cretaceous mawsoniid coelacanth (Sarcopterygii: Actinistia) from North America: Evidence of a lineage of extinct ‘living fossils’
title_fullStr The first late cretaceous mawsoniid coelacanth (Sarcopterygii: Actinistia) from North America: Evidence of a lineage of extinct ‘living fossils’
title_full_unstemmed The first late cretaceous mawsoniid coelacanth (Sarcopterygii: Actinistia) from North America: Evidence of a lineage of extinct ‘living fossils’
title_short The first late cretaceous mawsoniid coelacanth (Sarcopterygii: Actinistia) from North America: Evidence of a lineage of extinct ‘living fossils’
title_sort first late cretaceous mawsoniid coelacanth (sarcopterygii: actinistia) from north america: evidence of a lineage of extinct ‘living fossils’
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8584698/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34762682
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259292
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