A new Priabonian Chondrichthyans assemblage from the Western desert, Egypt: Correlation with the Fayum oasis

Diversity and renewal of tropical elasmobranchs around the Middle Eocene Climatic Optimum (MECO) in North Africa: New data from the lagoonal deposits of Djebel el Kébar, Central Tunisia

“…Units D-G, Wadi al Hitan, Egypt dated to early Priabonian (NP19-20) in Underwood et al ( , 2013; JQ: brackish-freshwater deposits of the Jebel Qatrani Fm. (early Oligocene), Fayum, Egypt (in Murray, 2004); KM: locality Kilometer 11, Qasr el-Saghr Fm, Western Desert, Egypt (late Priabonian) in Adnet et al (2011); MI: deposits from the Midawara Fm., Wadi al Hitan, Egypt, dated to uppermost Lutetian -lowermost Bartonian NP16/17 according Strougo (2008) in Underwood et al ( , 2013, and Helal and Holcova (2017); QS: deposits from the Qasr el-Saghr Fm., Fayum, Egypt (late Priabonian -Chr 15n) in . revisited and figured a large part of the elasmobranch fauna from Wadi al Hitan, Egypt, with detailed listing (Underwood et al 2011, Tab.…”

“…It concerns those of a fossil thresher shark Alopias sp. Until now, Alopias representatives were primarily known in tropical seas during the Late Eocene in Europe (e.g., Cappetta, 2012), and from southwestern Morocco (Adnet et al, 2011) to Egypt (Case and Cappetta, 1990;Zalmout et al, 2012) with the reports of the ambiguous North American Alopias alabamensis White, 1956(see Ebersole et al 2019. Only represented by a single specimen in MI (Middle Eocene), teeth of Alopias seem to be more abundant throughout all the other open marine rock units of Wadi al Hitan (Case and Cappetta, 1990;, GE (A-C) included.…”

“…Stratigraphically and geographical locations of the main deposits with Elasmobranch associations along the southwestern Tethys. Abbreviations: DAK: Dakhla (Adnet et al, 2010), GEN: Genam (Zouhri et al, 2017, in press); AZ: Aznag (Tabuce et al, 2005) PM: Phosphate ores (see Noubhani and Cappetta, 1997), Morocco; GAF: Gafsa basin (see Arambourg, 1952); KEBAR: Kébar (this work and Adnet et al, 2019); MBK: Mabrouk (see Sweydan et al, 2019), Tunisia; EG: ElGedida (see Strougo et al, 2007); KM: KM11 (see Adnet et al, 2011) MT: Minqar Tabaghbagh (see Zalmout et al, 2012); BQ: Birquet Qarun QS: Quar et Sa; GE: Genahamm Fm. ; MI: Midawara FM.…”

“…The quantity of phosphate in marine deposition (and correlatively fossil-bearing levels with well preserved elasmobranch teeth) decreases along the inshore since the late Middle Eocene. In this context, most of the Late Eocene fossil-bearing localities with elasmobranchs are found to be related to coastal sand body complexes (Adnet et al, 2007(Adnet et al, , 2010(Adnet et al, , 2011. Among them, some well-exposed coastal complexes in the Western Desert of Egypt (e.g., Wadi al Hitan) have been sometimes interpreted to reflect such global cooling and ephemeral eustatic sea level decrease (possibly related to merging of ice?)…”

Eocene sand tiger sharks (Lamniformes, Odontaspididae) from the Bolca Konservat-Lagerstätte, Italy: palaeobiology, palaeobiogeography and evolutionary significance

“…Isolated teeth of Lutetian to Priabonian age of North Africa, North America, and Asia traditionally assigned to Otodus koerti (Stromer, 1910) and to Lamna or Cretolamna twiggsensis (Case, 1981) have been tentatively referred to Brachycarcharias by Underwood et al (2011). However, the validity of B. twiggsensis was later questioned by Adnet et al (2011) and Cappetta and Case (2016) recently reassigned this species to Tethylamna, a genus erected for material recovered from the Lutetian of Alabama. Although Cappetta (2006) considered B. mississippiensis from the Thanetian to the Ypresian of North America (see also Case 1994) to be a junior synonymy of B. lerichei, Case et al (2015) consider B. mississippiensis as a valid species.…”