New records of the genus Sphyraena (Teleostei: Sphyraenidae) from the Caribbean with comments on dental characters in the genus

ABSTRACT

Sphyraenidae is a cosmopolitan group of marine fishes represented by both extant and extinct taxa with occurrences spanning most of the Cenozoic. Although some species are known from well-preserved specimens with a considerable degree of completeness, most of the fossil record in the family consists of isolated teeth. Fossil occurrences of the genus Sphyraena are described from the Neogene Castilletes fauna of Colombia and the Palmetto and Torreya faunas in the United States. Symphysial teeth are found to differ serially, thus allowing us to refine anatomical descriptions of common isolated fossil remains in the genus Sphyraena. Comparisons with other marine taxa that show hypertrophied symphysial teeth are made in order to assess the taxonomic value of symphysial teeth as diagnostic structures of value in studies of isolated sphyraenid specimens.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank J. Bloch, B. MacFadden, R. Hulbert, A. Rincón, and I. Quitmyer (FLMNH) for granting access to specimens under their care and for their hospitality; J. Escobar and N. Hoyos (MUN, Universidad del Norte) are acknowledged for allowing access to the fossil specimens from the Castilletes Formation and also for their hospitality during a visit to their institution. I am especially grateful to C. Jaramillo (STRI) for supporting financially and logistically the present work during its earliest phases. The Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) is acknowledged for funding through a doctoral scholarship (process 2014/11558-5) and a BEPE internship (process 2016/02253-1). Part of this research was funded through a Böhlke endowment, and a STRI fellowship. I thank M. Pastana for discussions on Carangarian interrelationships; K. Bemis for comments on the nature of enameloid in Acanthomorphs; O. Vernygora, V. Tagliacollo, F. Moreno, A. López-Arbarello for reading and providing feedback on either part of all of the manuscript, and S. Reinales for support, feedback, and intense discussions through the development of this project. I thank my doctoral advisor M. de Pinna for all his support and academic freedom for undertaking side projects quite unrelated to my thesis during which this project was mostly carried out. I thank D. Serripieri for her help in securing several obscure references on the Sphyraenidae. The Museu de Zoologia (USP), Instituto de Ciencias Naturales (Universidad Nacional de Colombia), and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (Smithsonian Institution) are acknowledged for providing logistic support and/or workspace during different phases of this work. The comments by two anonymous reviewers and the editors have greatly improved the quality of the present work and I thank all for their degree of detail and positive feedback.