 |
| Fig 11. Restoration of diverse sharks and rays in coastal lagoon-estuarine at late Miocene times in Urumaco. (A) Sharpnose shark Rhizoprionodon sp., (B) Hammerhead shark Sphyrna cf. zygaena, (C) Bull shark Carcharhinus leucas, (D) “Big tooth” Carcharocles megalodon, (E) Tiger shark Galeocerdo cuvier, (F) Spotted eagle ray Aetobatus cf. narinari, (G) Eagle ray Myliobatis sp., (H) Guitarfish Rhynchobatus sp., (I) Sawfish Pristis sp., (J) Stingray cf. Dasyatis.
Artwork by Jorge Gonzalez. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0139230
|
Abstract
The Urumaco stratigraphic sequence, western Venezuela, preserves a variety of paleoenvironments that include terrestrial, riverine, lacustrine and marine facies. A wide range of fossil vertebrates associated with these facies supports the hypothesis of an estuary in that geographic area connected with a hydrographic system that flowed from western Amazonia up to the Proto-Caribbean Sea during the Miocene. Here the elasmobranch assemblages of the middle Miocene to middle Pliocene section of the Urumaco sequence (Socorro, Urumaco and Codore formations) are described. Based on new findings, we document at least 21 taxa of the Lamniformes, Carcharhiniformes, Myliobatiformes and Rajiformes, and describe a new carcharhiniform species (†Carcharhinus caquetius sp. nov.). Moreover, the Urumaco Formation has a high number of well-preserved fossil Pristis rostra, for which we provide a detailed taxonomic revision, and referral in the context of the global Miocene record of Pristis as well as extant species. Using the habitat preference of the living representatives, we hypothesize that the fossil chondrichthyan assemblages from the Urumaco sequence are evidence for marine shallow waters and estuarine habitats.
Conclusion:
The lithologies of the Urumaco sequence are characterized by substantial variation, indicating the complexity and heterogeneity of these geologic units. Both fossils and the sedimentology document terrestrial and marine facies, including transitional paleoenviroments, and consequently a fauna tolerant to these environments. The elasmobranch fauna from the Urumaco sequence (Socorro-Urumaco-Codore formations), with almost 21 taxa, is associated principally with estuarine coastal lagoon and very shallow marine waters. The presence of elasmobranchs in association with others marine, freshwater and terrestrial vertebrates which provide seemingly contradictory signals for a palaeoenvironmental reconstruction is consistent across the larger stratigraphic sequence. This pattern is not the result of taphonomic processes, but instead proof of mixed coastal marine and fluvial-estuarine hydrographic environments during the Miocene. At the same time, the presence in the Urumaco sequence of abundant aquatic/semiaquatic vertebrates, phylogenetically close to extant groups that occur today in the Orinoco and the Amazon drainage system, support the highly debated hypothesis of a paleo-hydrographic fluvial, lacustrine or wetland complex drainage flowing along the northwestern coast of the Miocene Falcón basin into the proto-Caribbean.
Jorge D. Carrillo-Briceño, Erin Maxwell, Orangel A. Aguilera, Rodolfo Sánchez and Marcelo R. Sánchez-Villagra. 2015. Sawfishes and Other Elasmobranch Assemblages from the Mio-Pliocene of the South Caribbean (Urumaco Sequence, Northwestern Venezuela). PLoS ONE. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0139230
