Discovery of an earliest Pliocene relic tropical fish fauna in a newly detected cliff section (Sabratah Basin, NW Libya)

Los peces (Chondrichthyes, Osteichthyes) del Plioceno inferior de Gran Canaria y Fuerteventura (Islas Canarias, España)

“…We were also able to consult the Rothpletz collection in the Paläontologisches Museum München. Systematics of the present publication for Chondrichthyes follows Cappetta (2012). The teeth terminology for Sparidae is in accordance with Day (2002).…”

“…Their presence in the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean would be consonant with the palaeogeographic conditions described above (Meco et al, 2015) and related to the CAS. One possible Archosargus has been found in the Early Pliocene of Libya (Pawellek et al, 2012). Diodon scillae has been found in the Miocene of Cuba and the Mediterranean (Iturralde-Vinent & Case, 1998).…”

“…This is a factor to be considered in the explanation of the presence of numerous Indo-Pacific sharks in the Mediterranean (Pawellek et al, 2012).…”

“…The presence in the Mediterranean (Lybia) of the genera Galeocerdo, Carcharhinus, Archosargus (?) and Diodon indicates a tropical to equatorial climate (Pawellek et al, 2012).…”

“…This scenario is characterised principally by an open Central American Seaway (CAS) (Schmidt, 2007;Montes et al, 2012;Erkens, 2015;Meco et al, 2015;, an open Gibraltar Seaway after the so-called Messinian crisis (Garcia-Castellanos et al, 2009) and warm pantropical waters (Meco et al, 2015) in the Pacific, Subtropical North Atlantic (Ávila et al, 2012) and Mediterranean (Pawellek et al, 2012).…”