New species of lungfish (Sarcopterygii, Dipnoi) from the Late Triassic Krasiejów site in Poland, with remarks on the ontogeny of Triassic dipnoan tooth plates

ABSTRACT

This paper describes a new species of lungfish, Ptychoceratodus roemeri, sp. nov., based on 25 tooth plates from the Upper Triassic (Carnian) freshwater sediments of the Krasiejów locality, in Poland. Two vomerine teeth and numerous scales were also found associated with the tooth plates. Specific variations in Ptychoceratodus tooth plates are analyzed together with morphological evidence of ontogenetic changes among selected species. This study permits the discrimination between diagnostic, systematic characters and those affected by ontogeny. The new species together with nine other ptychoceratodonts from the Triassic of Europe are compared in order to assess their interrelationships. On the basis of morphological and biometrical comparisons, P. roemeri, sp. nov., is most closely related to P. concinnus from the Lehrberg Beds in Germany. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:93617FF9-13E7-41A7-A717-DC457467BF56

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank the following people for their contributions to this study: A. Kemp (Griffith University, Brisbane) and M. Borsuk-Białynicka and T. Sulej (ZPAL) for reading the manuscript, giving advice on systematics and anatomy, and supervising my research; greatest thanks to my wife R. Skrzycka for her support, encouragement, useful comments and suggestions, and help with drawings and illustrations; M. Skrzycki for help with the statistics; K. Lech (UPPAL) and A. Bodzioch (UOPB) for access to new, undescribed material from Krasiejów studied here; R. Boettcher and D. Seegis (SMNS), E. Świdnicka (ZPALWR), and P. Raczyński (MGUWr) for providing access to museum collections and an amicable atmosphere; C. Bueno (Natural History Museum of Neuchâtel) for information about Ptychoceratodus philippsi; students, volunteers, and organizers of the excavations in Krasiejów for their hard work; photographs of the specimens were taken by M. Dziewiński (ZPAL); and editor M. Richter and reviewers H.-P. Schultze and L. Cavin for constructive suggestions for improvement of the manuscript.