Danian teleosteans of the North Atlantic Region – compared with the Maastrichtian

Abstract

Danian marine faunas with teleostean skeletal remains are extremely rare, retrieved so far only from the type Danian region in the North Sea Basin, and recently from Mexico. They are very important as the first testimony of faunal composition after the extinction events at the K/Pg boundary. The comparison between the Danian and Maastrichtian faunas from the North Sea Basin suggests that the fishes were generally less affected by the K/Pg mass extinction event than the tetrapods. Only one higher level subgroup of crown-teleosts, the enchodonts, went extinct at the K/Pg boundary, while there was no extinction among the shark families. Moreover, the shark diversity recovered fast and reached the same Late Cretaceous levels already by Mid Danian. The teleosts had their composition changed to a much more “modern” fauna with skeletons and otoliths of many acanthomorphs, including gadiforms, scorpaeniforms and perciforms.

Keywords

• teleostei
• danian
• maastrichtian
• sweden
• denmark
• west greenland