First record of gars (Lepisosteidae, Actinopterygii) on Madagascar: Late Cretaceous remains from the Mahajanga Basin

ABSTRACT

Gars (Lepisosteidae, Actinopterygii) are reported from Madagascar for the first time, from exposures of the Upper Cretaceous (?Campanian) Maevarano Formation in the Mahajanga Basin, northwestern Madagascar. The material includes relatively common isolated scales, and vertebral centra, teeth, fin rays, and dermal cranial elements, all assigned to Lepisosteus sp. This new record from Madagascar adds to previously documented Cretaceous Gondwanan gar occurrences in India, Africa, and South America, as well as in Laurasia. The overall pattern points to a Pangean distribution in the Cretaceous and a Jurassic or earlier origin for the gar clade. The extant endemic fishes of Madagascar are not phylogenetically close to gars or to other Late Cretaceous fishes known from the island, suggesting that the ichthyofauna now there likely evolved from post-Mesozoic colonizers.