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Polyplacophoran Feeding Traces on Mediterranean Pliocene Sirenian Bones: Insights on the Role of Grazing Bioeroders in Shallow-Marine Vertebrate Falls

Chitons (Polyplacophora) include some of the most conspicuous bioeroders of the present-day shallow seas. Abundant palaeontological evidence for the feeding activity of ancient chitons is preserved in the form of radular traces that are usually found on invertebrate shells and hardgrounds. We report...

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Autores principales: Collareta, Alberto, Merella, Marco, Casati, Simone, Di Cencio, Andrea, Tinelli, Chiara, Bianucci, Giovanni
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9965807/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36836683
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life13020327
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author Collareta, Alberto
Merella, Marco
Casati, Simone
Di Cencio, Andrea
Tinelli, Chiara
Bianucci, Giovanni
author_facet Collareta, Alberto
Merella, Marco
Casati, Simone
Di Cencio, Andrea
Tinelli, Chiara
Bianucci, Giovanni
author_sort Collareta, Alberto
collection PubMed
description Chitons (Polyplacophora) include some of the most conspicuous bioeroders of the present-day shallow seas. Abundant palaeontological evidence for the feeding activity of ancient chitons is preserved in the form of radular traces that are usually found on invertebrate shells and hardgrounds. We report on widespread grazing traces occurring on partial skeletons of the extinct sirenian Metaxytherium subapenninum from the Lower Pliocene (Zanclean) of Arcille (Grosseto Province, Tuscany, Italy). These distinctive ichnofossils are described under the ichnotaxonomic name Osteocallis leonardii isp. nov. and interpreted as reflecting substrate scraping by polyplacophorans. A scrutiny of palaeontological literature reveals that similar traces occur on fossil vertebrates as old as the Upper Cretaceous, suggesting that bone has served as a substrate for chiton feeding for more than 66 million years. Whether these bone modifications reflect algal grazing, carrion scavenging or bone consumption remains unsure, but the first hypothesis appears to be the most parsimonious, as well as the most likely in light of the available actualistic data. As the role of bioerosion in controlling fossilization can hardly be overestimated, further research investigating how grazing organisms contribute to the biostratinomic processes affecting bone promises to disclose new information on how some marine vertebrates manage to become fossils.
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spelling pubmed-99658072023-02-26 Polyplacophoran Feeding Traces on Mediterranean Pliocene Sirenian Bones: Insights on the Role of Grazing Bioeroders in Shallow-Marine Vertebrate Falls Collareta, Alberto Merella, Marco Casati, Simone Di Cencio, Andrea Tinelli, Chiara Bianucci, Giovanni Life (Basel) Article Chitons (Polyplacophora) include some of the most conspicuous bioeroders of the present-day shallow seas. Abundant palaeontological evidence for the feeding activity of ancient chitons is preserved in the form of radular traces that are usually found on invertebrate shells and hardgrounds. We report on widespread grazing traces occurring on partial skeletons of the extinct sirenian Metaxytherium subapenninum from the Lower Pliocene (Zanclean) of Arcille (Grosseto Province, Tuscany, Italy). These distinctive ichnofossils are described under the ichnotaxonomic name Osteocallis leonardii isp. nov. and interpreted as reflecting substrate scraping by polyplacophorans. A scrutiny of palaeontological literature reveals that similar traces occur on fossil vertebrates as old as the Upper Cretaceous, suggesting that bone has served as a substrate for chiton feeding for more than 66 million years. Whether these bone modifications reflect algal grazing, carrion scavenging or bone consumption remains unsure, but the first hypothesis appears to be the most parsimonious, as well as the most likely in light of the available actualistic data. As the role of bioerosion in controlling fossilization can hardly be overestimated, further research investigating how grazing organisms contribute to the biostratinomic processes affecting bone promises to disclose new information on how some marine vertebrates manage to become fossils. MDPI 2023-01-24 /pmc/articles/PMC9965807/ /pubmed/36836683 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life13020327 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Collareta, Alberto
Merella, Marco
Casati, Simone
Di Cencio, Andrea
Tinelli, Chiara
Bianucci, Giovanni
Polyplacophoran Feeding Traces on Mediterranean Pliocene Sirenian Bones: Insights on the Role of Grazing Bioeroders in Shallow-Marine Vertebrate Falls
title Polyplacophoran Feeding Traces on Mediterranean Pliocene Sirenian Bones: Insights on the Role of Grazing Bioeroders in Shallow-Marine Vertebrate Falls
title_full Polyplacophoran Feeding Traces on Mediterranean Pliocene Sirenian Bones: Insights on the Role of Grazing Bioeroders in Shallow-Marine Vertebrate Falls
title_fullStr Polyplacophoran Feeding Traces on Mediterranean Pliocene Sirenian Bones: Insights on the Role of Grazing Bioeroders in Shallow-Marine Vertebrate Falls
title_full_unstemmed Polyplacophoran Feeding Traces on Mediterranean Pliocene Sirenian Bones: Insights on the Role of Grazing Bioeroders in Shallow-Marine Vertebrate Falls
title_short Polyplacophoran Feeding Traces on Mediterranean Pliocene Sirenian Bones: Insights on the Role of Grazing Bioeroders in Shallow-Marine Vertebrate Falls
title_sort polyplacophoran feeding traces on mediterranean pliocene sirenian bones: insights on the role of grazing bioeroders in shallow-marine vertebrate falls
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9965807/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36836683
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/life13020327
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