Elphidium tongaense (Cushman 1931), a quite old Recent foraminifer

Abstract

The late middleMiocene microfossil assemblages from the easternmost Pannonian Basin in Romania preserve numerous evolute and deformed specimens of Elphidium, which are assigned to the Recent species E. tongaense (Cushman 1931) originally described from the Pacific. Ourmaterial suggests that the origin of the species is back in the middle Miocene, when amarine connection between the Paratethys and the Indo-Pacific regions probably existed.