Myliobatid and pycnodont fish from the Late Cretaceous of Central India and their paleobiogeographic implications

Abstract

Bulk sampling from Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Deccan volcano-sedimentary sequences at Kisalpuri (District Dindori, Madhya Pradesh) and Pisdura–Dongargaon (Chandrapur District, Maharashtra) in Peninsular India has yielded the dental remains of myliobatid and pycnodont fish. This fish fauna comprises Igdabatis indicus, Pycnodontoidea indet. and Pycnodontidae indet., and resembles assemblages known from Upper Cretaceous deposits in Africa and Europe. While paleobiogeographically speaking, the presence of Igdabatis suggests a series of shallow marine dispersals that may have occurred between Africa and India, possibly along the margins of the Kohistan–Ladakh island arc during the latest Cretaceous; the record of pycnodont fish favours instead a Gondwanan dispersal event.

Keywords:

• Myliobatids
• pycnodonts
• Upper Cretaceous
• Deccan volcanism
• India

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to Prof. F. J. Poyato-Ariza for his comments on pycnodonts and thank Prof. J. Kriwet for providing useful literature. We also thank Mr. N. K. Juyal, Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehra Dun for the SEM photomicrography of specimens. The authors also wish to thank the editor, Dr. G. Dyke and three anonymous reviewers whose observations and constructive comments greatly improved our paper.