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Pterygopalatine dental plates of select post-Devonian lungfishes. Right dental plates are shown in occlusal view. A, right pterygopalatine of DMNH 40179; B, interpretive drawing of right pterygopalatine of DMNH 40179; C, simplified reconstruction of right pterygopalatine dental plate of Potamoceratodus guentheri, comb. nov.; D, right pterygopalatine dental plate of Gnathorhiza dikeloda Olson, 1951, modified from Olson (1951); E, right pterygopalatine dental plate of Ptychoceratodus serratus Agassiz, 1838, after Kemp (1998); F, right pterygopalatine dental plate of Ferganoceratodus martini Cavin, Suteethorn, Buffetaut, and Tong, 2007, after Cavin et al. (2007); G, right pterygopalatine of Ceratodus sturii Teller, 1891, after Kemp (1998); H, right pterygopalatine of Arganodus atlanticus Martin, 1979, after Kemp (1998). Scale bars in A and B equal 1 cm; C-H not to scale.
Source publication
Much of Mesozoic diversity within the lungfishes (Osteichthyes: Dipnoi) has traditionally been relegated to the genus Ceratodus, primarily on the basis of the highly stereotypical dental plates characteristic of post-Devonian lungfishes. The new genus Potamoceratodus contains the single species P. guentheri (Marsh, 187832.
Marsh , O. C. 1878. A ne...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... pterygoids are paired wing-like elements dominating the anterior portion of the palate. The anterior portion of the ptery- goid is dominated by the large pterygoid dental plate. The ptery- goid dental plate is roughly typical of ceratodontiform-grade lungfishes (Figure 2A, B). The dental plate is composed of five distinct odontode series radiating from a point. Petrodentine cores and a dentine sheet accrete each odontode series into a con- tinuous ridge, and fill inter-ridge gaps to produce a single robust mineralized element. The anterior ridge of the dental plate is ap- proximately twice as high as the other ridges of the dental plate. It runs parallel to the sagittal plane, and meets the pterygoidal Olson, 1951, modified from Olson (1951; E, right pterygopalatine dental plate of Ptychoceratodus serratus Agassiz, 1838, after Kemp (1998); F, right pterygopalatine dental plate of Ferganoceratodus martini Cavin, Suteethorn, Buffetaut, andTong, 2007, after Cavin et al. (2007); G, right pterygopalatine of Ceratodus sturii Teller, 1891, after Kemp (1998); H, right pterygopalatine of Arganodus atlanticus Martin, 1979, after Kemp (1998. Scale bars in A and B equal 1 cm; C-H not to ...
Context 2
... pterygoids are paired wing-like elements dominating the anterior portion of the palate. The anterior portion of the ptery- goid is dominated by the large pterygoid dental plate. The ptery- goid dental plate is roughly typical of ceratodontiform-grade lungfishes (Figure 2A, B). The dental plate is composed of five distinct odontode series radiating from a point. Petrodentine cores and a dentine sheet accrete each odontode series into a con- tinuous ridge, and fill inter-ridge gaps to produce a single robust mineralized element. The anterior ridge of the dental plate is ap- proximately twice as high as the other ridges of the dental plate. It runs parallel to the sagittal plane, and meets the pterygoidal Olson, 1951, modified from Olson (1951; E, right pterygopalatine dental plate of Ptychoceratodus serratus Agassiz, 1838, after Kemp (1998); F, right pterygopalatine dental plate of Ferganoceratodus martini Cavin, Suteethorn, Buffetaut, andTong, 2007, after Cavin et al. (2007); G, right pterygopalatine of Ceratodus sturii Teller, 1891, after Kemp (1998); H, right pterygopalatine of Arganodus atlanticus Martin, 1979, after Kemp (1998. Scale bars in A and B equal 1 cm; C-H not to ...
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Citations
... For example, the number of denticulations, with five present in pterygopalatine plates and four in prearticular plates, is found in certain North American species (e.g. Potamoceratodus guentheri (Marsh, 1878); Kirkland 1987, Pardo et al. 2010Frederickson & Cifelli 2017;Harrel & Ehret 2019;Pawlak et al. 2020), as well as in other species from Patagonia (e.g. Rinconodus salvadori; Apesteguía et al. 2007;Panzeri et al. 2020Panzeri et al. , 2022a, Asia (e.g. ...
... These difficulties in the family-level assignment have been previously raised in studies of lungfish tooth plates from other parts of the world, due to the overlap in the provided diagnoses (see Skrzycki 2015). Moreover, these challenges also extend to certain traditional genera, which might not form cohesive natural groupings (Cavin et al. 2007;Pardo et al. 2010;Frederickson & Cifelli 2017). Therefore, taking these considerations into account, the generic diagnosis of Atlantoceratodus is retained, albeit with slight modifications derived from observations made in this study. ...
... In relation to tooth plates from other parts of the world (excluding the species Atlantoceratodus madagascariensis), A. iheringi and the remaining Patagonian species exhibit similarities to the tooth plates of North American species, such as Potamoceratodus guentheri (Pardo et al., 2010), Ceratodus molossus Frede-rickson & Cifelli, 2017, or C. robustus (Knight, 1898). These similarities include the number of denticulations, the longer medial edge compared to the lingual edge, the curved lingual edge and the well-developed plateau area. ...
Atlantoceratodus iheringi (Ameghino, 1898) from Argentine territory is restudied based on its known tooth plates and newly discovered material, which includes previously unknown skull roof bones and vomerine tooth plates. The latter represent the first records of such elements from the Mesozoic era in South America. The comparative morphological analysis reveals its distinctiveness from other dipnoans, and offers valuable data for future systematic and phylogenetic research. The pterygopalatine tooth plates display narrow-based first denticulations and lack anterior wear facets, with the inner angle positioned at the level of the second denticulation. Similarly, the pre-articular tooth plates feature straight mediolingual edges, and a wide-based first denticulation without sinuosities at the tip. Histological sections are performed and analyzed in detail for the first time. A. iheringi presents in this aspect distinctive features such as: large-lumen denteons tending to cluster together, circumdenteonal dentine arranged in a double band (an inner birefringent and an outer monorefringent), and a disordered interdenteonal dentine, with birefringence surrounding denteons and areas with monorefringence. A. iheringi exhibits histological structure closer to Mesozoic and Cenozoic dipnoans than Paleozoic, especially resembling the disposition observed in the Upper Cretaceous Patagonian species Metaceratodus baibianorum. The wide distribution of features designated as diagnostic for Atlantoceratodus is discussed.
... , but these are often more fragmentary and have historically not been afforded the same attention. While there are some assemblages of articulated fish from Upper Triassic strata in the American Southwest (Schaeffer, 1967;Johnson et al., 2002;Gibson, 2016Gibson, , 2018, most fossil osteichthyans and chondrichthyans are found more incidentally, often as isolated and/or fragmentary fossils in microvertebrate assemblages (Murry, 1986 Upper Triassic lungfish from the American Southwest have long been considered to represent a single taxon, Arganodus, sometimes referred to the species Arganodus dorotheae (Murry, 1989;Hunt et al., 1989;, which apparently replaced the Middle Permian sagenodontid taxa Sagenodus and gnathorhizid taxa Gnathorhiza (Pardo et al., 2010). The Ceratodontiformes were the only group of dipnoans that remained globally post-PTB (Kemp et al., 2017). ...
... Multiple species are known from various localities across the southern Central European Basin, Argentina, Brazil, Madagascar, Turkey, and India (Schultze, 2004;Skrzycki, 2015;Skrzyckiet al., 2018). Occurrences of Ceratodus guentheri, a species compared favorably to Ptychoceratodus by Martin (1982), are known from the Jurassic Morrison Formation of the U.S.A. Frederickson and Cifelli, 2017), but was later assigned to the genus Potamoceratodus by Pardo et al. (2010). Additionally, some lungfish tooth plates with a "ptychoceratodont" morphology are known from Cretaceous deposits of the western U.S.A. (Frederickson and Cifelli, 2017;Skrzycki et al., 2018). ...
Mesozoic lungfish fossils ordinarily consist of isolated tooth plates. Many tooth plates, typically assigned to Arganodus, are known from the Upper Triassic of the American Southwest. The new Homestead Site at Garita Creek is the most extensive vertebrate assemblage described from the Garita Creek Formation in east-central New Mexico. It has yielded enough new lungfish fossils (18 nearly complete-complete and 43 fragmentary tooth plates) to qualify as the second-richest Upper Triassic lungfish site in North America. We measured the tooth plates of Homestead and several others from the Chinle, identifying multiple tooth plate morphotypes, including ones with only 4–5 ridges that fall outside the diagnosis of Arganodus, suggesting that the Homestead assemblage preserves at least two taxa. Reevaluating 32 previously published PEFO tooth plates further supports the presence of two morphologies: a more common morph we assign to Arganodus sp., and a second morph that we assign to cf. Ptychoceratodus. Ptychoceratodus has a limited presence in North American strata, but is known from the Late Triassic of Greenland. A ptychoceratodontid in the Upper Triassic of western North America greatly increases their geographic range during the Triassic, and shows that they coexisted with Arganodus on at least three modern continents.
... Kemp 1998;Cavin et al. 2007;Pawlak et al. 2020). Most of the skull roof material is of Triassic age (Teller 1891;Teixeira 1949;Lehman et al. 1959;Vorobyeva 1967), whereas they are scarce for the Jurassic and Cretaceous (Schultze 1981;Cavin et al. 2007Cavin et al. , 2020Pardo et al. 2010;Giordano et al. 2017). Thus, the understanding of the systematics and the anatomy of Mesozoic lungfishes is mostly based on tooth plates. ...
... Like R. salvadori n. gen., n. sp., the species P. serratus, Ferganoceratodus martini, Ferganoceratodus jurassicus, and Ferganoceratodus annekempae, have skull roof bones with faint lines radiating from the ossification center (Schultze 1981;Cavin et al. 2007). The ceratodontid Potamoceratodus guentheri (Marsh, 1878) from the Upper Jurassic Morrison Formation, Colorado (United States) has two bones in the medial series with a small rostrum, and two bones in the mediolateral series (Pardo et al. 2010: fig. 1b; Fig. 11L). ...
Les fossiles des dipneustes sont principalement représentés par des plaques dentaires et des os de la mâchoire, alors que les crânes complets, ou presque complets, sont rares. Ici, nous décrivons un nouveau dipneuste du Santonien (Crétacé supérieur) de la Patagonie Argentine à l’aide de rendus tridimensionnels générés par des tomodensitogrammes. Il s’agit d’un crâne quasi-complet et de matériel postcrânien. Rinconodus salvadori n. gen., n. sp. est diagnostiqué par une combinaison de caractéristiques, telles que : série médiale composée de deux os non appariés, série médio-latérale composée de deux os appariés, série latérale avec au moins un os, bord médial des plaques dentaires plus long que le bord lingual et de même courbure, plaques dentaires supérieures contiguës ou proches les unes des autres avec cinq denticulations, plaques dentaires inférieures largement séparées avec quatre denticulations, première denticulation des plaques dentaires supérieures plus longue et plus mince que les autres denticulations, et courbée postérieurement, première denticulation des plaques dentaires inférieures relativement droite et plus longue que les autres, entre autres. La nouvelle espèce est basée sur les deux premiers crânes de dipneustes Santoniens presque complets d’Amérique du Sud. De plus, les matériaux présentés ici sont les enregistrements les plus récents d’un crâne de dipneuste presque complet et de matériel postcrânien du Crétacé du Gondwana.
... Interpretation of the patterns of fusion between bones of the skull roofs of Mesozoic lungfishes varies according to authors. We follow here the nomenclature of Cavin et al. (2007), an approach regarded as 'well-meant agnostic' by Pardo et al. (2010). We also indicate the possible equivalent names in the alphabetical nomenclature. ...
... The angles between the ridges depend on two factors, the angle of growth and the angle of wear, but only the angle of growth can be used for taxonomic determination (Kemp, 1997). As has been previously reported, lungfish exhibit considerable intraspecific variation in tooth plate morphology; therefore, it can be difficult to identify them to the specific or even generic level without additional cranial material (Schultze, 1981;Pardo et al., 2010;Otero, 2011;Frederickson and Cifelli, 2017). However, some authors argue that isolated tooth plates can be reliably used as taxonomic indicators (e.g., Kemp, 1998). ...
... Although biometric analysis can aid in identification by providing a range of measurements for a given taxon, the range of measurements sometimes overlaps with other taxa (Kemp and Molnar, 1981;Kirkland, 1987). In addition, post-Triassic lungfish discoveries constituting skeletal remains other than tooth plates are very rare (Pardo et al., 2010). This is due in part to preservational bias, specifically a general reduction in skeletal ossification over time, accompanied by a concomitant increase in mineralization of tooth plates within several lineages (Cavin et al., 2007). ...
... This is complicated by the fact that over half of the described species are based on isolated tooth plates or other fragmentary remains (Marshall, 1987). Specific assignment is further frustrated by ontogenetic variation and the near global distribution of certain conservative tooth plate morphologies such as those exhibited by ALMNH 8723 and MMNS VP-3440 (Smith and Krupina, 2001;Smith et al., 2002;Pardo et al., 2010). Other researchers (Kirkland 1987(Kirkland , 1998Frederickson and Cifelli, 2017) faced these same problems when dealing with isolated tooth plates from the late Mesozoic of the North American Western Interior. ...
Lungfish are a poorly represented component of the Mesozoic fossil record in North America, as most lungfish fossils consist of rare, isolated dental plates that are of little diagnostic value due to their conservative nature. In eastern North America, the paucity of lungfish fossils in Late Cretaceous strata is further compounded by the occurrence of geologic units that are primarily marine in origin, unlike the Late Jurassic to mid-Cretaceous fluvial deposits of the American west that contain comparatively more specimens. Lungfish fossils from the eastern side of the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway (Appalachia) have previously been reported from the Cenomanian Woodbine Formation of northeast Texas and the Campanian Mount Laurel Formation of New Jersey. Here we report two new occurrences of eastern North American lungfish tooth plates from the Santonian Eutaw Formation of Alabama and Mississippi. These two specimens are referred to Ceratodus frazieri Ostrom, 1970 and Ceratodus carteri Main et al., 2014, species that are better known from the mid-Cretaceous of the Western Interior of North America. This discovery is the first published record of lungfish of any age from the states of Alabama and Mississippi. It partially bridges the temporal gap in the fossil record between the Cenomanian lungfish of Texas and the Campanian lungfish of New Jersey and extends the biogeographic range of Late Cretaceous lungfish to the eastern Gulf Coastal Plain of the United States.
... These are mostly described based on the cranial material and morphology of dental plates (Martin 1982;Cavin et al. 2007;McCahon and Miller 2015). The aestivation burrows are other evidence of their presence and in many cases contain articulated skull bones of the lungfishes (Carlson 1968 Kemp 1986;Maina 1987;Falck et al. 2000;Pardo et al. 2010) from South America and Africa, respectively (Agnolín et al. 2016). ...
Numerous tooth plates of different types were recovered from the Upper Triassic Tiki Formation of India. Sharp crested tooth plates with five acute ridges, tubercles on the crests, robust and deep furrows, wide spaces between successive ridges and reticulate ornamentation on the occlusal surfaces are assigned to a new species of the dipnoan genus Ptychoceratodus. Another tooth plate, characterized by four ridges with conical and cusplet-like denticles is identified as a Gnathorhiza. This is the first record of gnathorhizid fishes from the Upper Triassic sediments around the world. The Tiki aquatic realm was inhabited by different types of fishes including freshwater sharks, omnivorous/carnivorous dipnoans and other bony fishes. Palaeobiogeographic distribution of the dipnoans suggests that these were restricted to a high palaeolatitude in the southern hemisphere, where co-occurrences of several genera are seen in India.
... Some Ptychoceratodus-like fossils (assigned to Ceratodus) were found also in Cretaceous deposits of Western USA (e.g., Kirkland, 1987;Frederickson and Cifelli, 2017). By the end of the Mesozoic dipnoans disappeared from the fossil record of North America (Schultze, 2004;Pardo et al., 2010), and no Ptychoceratodus-like remains have been so far P. Skrzycki et al. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology xxx (xxxx) xxx-xxx encountered from younger deposits. ...
... In these palaeobiogeographical considerationsin contrary to Kirkland (1987Kirkland ( , 1998, , Pardo et al. (2010) and Shimada and Kirkland (2011) we use assignments of Martin (1982), who included most of North American Ceratodus findings into Ptychoceratodus. It is worth noting, that Pardo et al. (2010) suggested that a revision of North American Ceratodus might result in its attribution to a newly erected genus Potamoceratodus, known from dental and cranial remains (see also Frederickson and Cifelli, 2017). ...
... In these palaeobiogeographical considerationsin contrary to Kirkland (1987Kirkland ( , 1998, , Pardo et al. (2010) and Shimada and Kirkland (2011) we use assignments of Martin (1982), who included most of North American Ceratodus findings into Ptychoceratodus. It is worth noting, that Pardo et al. (2010) suggested that a revision of North American Ceratodus might result in its attribution to a newly erected genus Potamoceratodus, known from dental and cranial remains (see also Frederickson and Cifelli, 2017). However, this attempt needs a thorough comparison of the dental material not only from the USA, but also at least from Europe. ...
Here we present a revision of dipnoans from the Middle-Upper Buntsandstein and the Lower Muschelkalk
(Lower-Middle Triassic) of the Holy Cross Mountains (southeastern Poland) and from the Middle Buntsandstein of northeastern Poland. Two genera are identified: Arganodus and Ptychoceratodus. Specimens resemble synchronous species from the European part of Russia. It is the first Middle Triassic finding of Arganodus worldwide. Ptychoceratodus is reported for the first time from the Lower Triassic of Poland. It is its oldest known occurrence in Europe. The Holy Cross Mountains stands between the area of European Russia and the Central European Basin which were both inhabited by Arganodus and Ptychoceratodus in the Early-Middle Triassic. Resulting from a summary of palaeobiogeographic data of these two genera their distributional patterns are hypothesized herein. In the Early Triassic both genera often co-occurred in many regions. Starting from the Middle Triassic their ranges split into two almost separate ones. They reflect the palaeolatitudinal belts in the Late Triassic with Arganodus in the northern tropic belt and Ptychoceratodus along the palaeolatitudes 30°.
... phillipsi' of the Karoo. As stated by others, more work is needed on the diagnoses of lungfish species, especially species based exclusively on toothplates (Cavin et al., 2007;Pardo et al., 2010). ...
The two vertebrate fossil assemblages from the ?Middle Triassic Ntawere Formation have been known since the 1960s, but little new work has been done since the description of novel taxa in the 1960s and 1970s. Three recent field seasons have increased vertebrate diversity in the upper Ntawere assemblage and expanded biostratigraphic connections between the lower and upper Ntawere assemblages and assemblages in fossiliferous basins across southern Pangea. The upper Ntawere contains hybodontoid sharks, ptychoceratodontid lungfish, large- and small-bodied stereospondyl amphibians (Cherninia, ‘Stanocephalosaurus,’ Batrachosuchus, a new taxon), stahleckeriid dicynodonts (Sangusaurus, Zambiasaurus), traversodontid and trirachodontid cynodonts (Luangwa, a new species, Cricodon), and at least four archosauromorphs, including a large loricatan pseudosuchian, a shuvosaurid poposauroid, and silesaurid dinosauriforms (Lutungutali), whereas the lower Ntawere contains the cynodonts Cynognathus and Diademodon and species of the dicynodont Kannemeyeria. The lower and upper Ntawere assemblages have been correlated with the middle and upper subzones of the Cynognathus Assemblage Zone of the Karoo Basin, South Africa, into a network of connections between assemblages in modern day Tanzania, Argentina, Brazil, Namibia, Antarctica, and India. Although lower Ntawere correlations are reinforced by the occurrence of Cynognathus, new observations from the upper Ntawere, in combination with field work in Tanzania, Namibia, and Brazil, have shifted the geographic focus of biostratigraphic connection away from the Karoo later in the Triassic. A recent radiometric date from Argentina from below the horizon correlated with both the Karoo and the lower Ntawere places these, and all higher assemblages, into the Carnian Stage of the Late Triassic.
Citation for this article: Peecook, B. R., J. S. Steyer, N. J. Tabor, and R. M. H. Smith. 2018. Updated geology and vertebrate paleontology of the Triassic Ntawere Formation of northeastern Zambia, with special emphasis on the archosauromorphs; pp. 8–38 in C. A. Sidor and S. J. Nesbitt (eds.), Vertebrate and Climatic Evolution in the Triassic Rift Basins of Tanzania and Zambia. Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Memoir 17. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 37(6, Supplement).
... In the Triassic, most of the specimens show articulated skull bones (except those from North and South America), but no attached tooth plates (Kemp, 1994;1998;Schultze, 2004). Jurassic and Cretaceous dipnoans consists mainly on isolated tooth plates (Kemp 1998;Schultze, 2004), exception are the Jurassic species Potamoceratodus guentheri (Pardo et al., 2010) and Ferganoceratodus jurassicus (Nessov and Kaznyshkin, 1985); Ferganoceratodus mar-tini putatively Cretaceous in age (Cavin et al., 2007;Racey and Goodall, 2009) and the Cretaceous species, Archaeoceratodus avus (Kemp, 1997a). The variable degree of completeness could be explained by sampling bias (Pardo et al., 2010). ...
... Jurassic and Cretaceous dipnoans consists mainly on isolated tooth plates (Kemp 1998;Schultze, 2004), exception are the Jurassic species Potamoceratodus guentheri (Pardo et al., 2010) and Ferganoceratodus jurassicus (Nessov and Kaznyshkin, 1985); Ferganoceratodus mar-tini putatively Cretaceous in age (Cavin et al., 2007;Racey and Goodall, 2009) and the Cretaceous species, Archaeoceratodus avus (Kemp, 1997a). The variable degree of completeness could be explained by sampling bias (Pardo et al., 2010). However, a taphonomic bias may not be discarded especially if it is considered that skull bones tend to reduction and fusion through dipnoans evolution. ...
Dipnoi is a large group of sarcopterygians which ranges from the Early Devonian to the present. Traditionally, it was considered that their taxonomic diversity decreased at the end of Paleozoic. Dipnoans are abundant in the fossil record and their preservation state varies. The material study herein was collected in La Invernada locality, at 50 km southwest from the Rincón de los Sauces city, Neuquén Province, Argentina. We present the irst dipnoan skull record from the Mesozoic of South America and gives a preliminary description of the material. The new specimens have been identiied as a Ceratodontidae indet.
... Soto and Perea (2010) noted that the Jurassic lungfishes remain very poorly known in the Gondwana, with only a few occurrences of two distinct forms, i.e., Arganodus tiguidiensis and Ceratodus (or Neoceratodus) africanus. Dipnoan assemblages from the Jurassic of Laurasia are characterized by the presence of other genera such as Ferganoceratodus and Potamoceratodus (Cavin et al., 2007;Pardo et al., 2010). This clearly indicates that this peculiar Jurassic situation resulted from a vicariant event between the Gondwanan and Laurasian lungfishes during the Triassic (Cavin et al., 2007). ...
Résumé – Dans le synclinal d’Anoual (Haut Atlas oriental), fût découvert en 1983 dans les « Couches rouges » de la transition Jurassique-Crétacé un gisement exceptionnel de microvertébrés. Ce gisement a fourni un assemblage de microvertébrés considéré comme l’un des plus diversifiés des faunes mésozoïques de l’ensemble de l’Afrique. Il comprend des « poissons », des amphibiens, des tortues, des crocodiles, des dinosaures, des ptérosaures et des mammifères parmi les très rares connus au Mésozoïque en Afrique (dont les plus anciens thériens africains). Par sa diversité exceptionnelle et sa situation paléogéographique au nord du Gondwana, le gisement d’Anoual revêt une importance particulière puisqu’il est l’un des plus importants connus à ce jour pour le Crétacé basal.
