Upper Miocene and Recent Mysid Statoliths in Central and Eastern Paratethys

An Adjusted Concept for a Problematic Taxon, Paramysis Festae Colosi, 1921, with Notes on Morphology, Biomineralogy, and Biogeography of the Genus Paramysis Czerniavsky, 1882 (Mysida, Mysidae)

“…This coincides well with the identification of mysid statoliths (Voicu, 1981) composed of CaCO 3 in the stable phase of calcite (Voicu, 1981;Ariani et al, 1993) in Miocene deposits of the brackish Paratethys, an epicontinental sea well known as a remote precursor of Caspian Lake and Black Sea. A similar pattern of statolith composition suggests a Paratethyan origin also for the genus Diamysis Czerniavsky, 1882, which, like Paramysis, is widely distributed in both the PontoCaspian and the Mediterranean basins (Ariani & Wittmann, 2000).…”

“…Studies on the statolith composition are potentially important in this genus: according to Schlacher et al (1992) and Wittmann et al (1993) the main structural characteristics of statoliths, i.e., the mineral composition, presence of a hylum, and statolith formula with a 3 + 2 + c + d pattern of the pores, in extant Mediterranean Paramysis remarkably correspond to those of known Paratethyan fossil remains. These fossils were assigned by Voicu (1981) to the genus Paramysis. Based on merely stratigraphic argumentation, they were later transferred to the Sarmatian Sarmysis upon first definition of this fossil genus by Maissuradze & Popescu (1987).…”

Benthic mass-mortality events on a Middle Miocene incised-valley tidal-flat (North Alpine Foredeep Basin)

“…There, the Asian hornsnail Batillaria attramentaria (Sowerby 1855) is settled by Pagurus hirsutiusculus (Dana 1851) and P. granosimanus (Stimpson 1859). At Wrst glance, this interpretation seems to be unlikely as no crustaceans are documented from the Sarmatian of the Central Paratethys (Müller 1998) aside from a biostratigraphically very limited horizon with mysid statoliths (Fuchs 1979;Voicu 1981). Nevertheless, the position of the gastropod shells and their obligatory concretions render hermit crabs as very likely producers of that taphonomic structures.…”

A new mysid (Crustacea, Mysida) from the Ladinian Stage (Middle Triassic) of Conca de Barberà (Catalonia, NE Iberian Peninsula)

“…With a habitus apparently similar to fossils described by Rabadà (1990), De Angeli and Rossi (2006) described Mysidopsis oligocenicus from the lower Oligocene of NE Italy, although its generic status is not clear due to a suboptimal state of preservation (Wittmann et al, 2014). In addition, fossil mysid statoliths have been described in Miocene deposits of the brackish Paratethys (Voicu, 1974(Voicu, , 1981Ionesi and Pascariu, 2011) and in the Aquitanian basin (SW France) (Steurbaut, 1989). Cartanyà (1991) first described a crustacean found in the Triassic reservoir of the Pinetell (Montblanc, Spain) and identified it with certain reservations as a "mysidacean."…”