DOI: 10.15468/wqqth8
title: New remarkable Late Jurassic teleosts from southern Germany: Ascalaboidae n. fam., its content, morphology, and phylogenetic relationships

description: This dataset contains the digitized treatments in Plazi based on the original journal article Arratia, G. (2016): New remarkable Late Jurassic teleosts from southern Germany: Ascalaboidae n. fam., its content, morphology, and phylogenetic relationships. Fossil Record 19 (1): 31-59, DOI: 10.5194/fr-19-31-2016, URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/fr-19-31-2016Abstract. Complete morphological descriptions, as preservation permits, are provided for a new Late Jurassic fish taxon (Ebertichthys ettlingensis n. gen. et n. sp.) and a revision of some morphological features of Ascalabos voithii Graf zu Münster from the Solnhofen limestones, southern Germany. A new family, Ascalaboidae, is erected to include the two species. The new family is supported by numerous synapomorphies, e.g., maxilla with external row of small conical teeth increasing in size posteriorly, absence of gular plate, low number of vertebrae (34 to 39), deep and narrow supracleithrum – deeper than opercle, and vertebral centrum formation of caudal region including paired chordacentra (pseudo-diplospondyly) that fuse in early ontogeny forming one chordacentrum that is later surrounded by an autocentrum. A phylogenetic analysis based on 173 characters and 42 taxa was performed. Following the phylogenetic hypothesis, the sister-group relationship [Ascalabos + Ebertichthys] + more advanced teleosts stands above the node of Leptolepis coryphaenoides plus more advanced teleosts and below the node of Tharsis plus more advanced teleosts, and the new taxa are interpreted as extinct and primitive forms within Teleostei. The new genus and species is endemic and restricted to one Upper Jurassic locality – Ettling – whereas Ascalabos is known from different localities in the Solnhofen limestones, with the exception of Ettling.1 IntroductionThe fossiliferous localities of Bavaria, southern Germany, represent one of the richest fossil fish localities and one of the most extraordinary fossil Lagerstätte in the world (Arratia et al., 2015). They are a succession of Upper Jurassic localities (Kimmeridgian, Tithonian; Schweigert, 2015) with hundreds of nominal plant and animal species (Schultze, 2015, table 5). Unfortunately, as a common practice in the past, many of the museum specimens are identified as from “Solnhofen”, without a precise locality.Late Jurassic fishes of Bavaria have been known for over 200 years. The first illustrations appeared in the work of Knorr (1755: pl. 23: figs. 2, 3; pl. 26a: figs. 1–4; pl. 28: fig. 2; pl. 29: figs. 2–4). Later, fishes illustrated by Knorr were giving scientific names by de Blainville (1818). For further details see Arratia (1997) and Tischlinger and Viohl (2015). The publication from de Blainville (1818) opened the door to intensive research on fishes during the 19th century (e.g., Agassiz, 1833–1843; Graf zu Münster, 1834, 1839a, b, 1842; Wagner, 1861, 1863; Vetter, 1881; Woodward, 1895) that slowed down in the first half of the 20th century with few contributions, e.g., Eastman (1914), Biese (1927), and Weitzel (1933). After a gap in the study of Jurassic fossil fishes of the Solnhofen limestones, Nybelin (1964, 1967, 1974) and Arratia (1987a, b) proposed fundamental changes to the taxonomy of teleosts from the region, and Taverne (1975a, b, 1981) and Patterson and Rosen (1977) provided additional morphological information of some of the teleostean species. Lambers (1992) listed 41 teleostean species, including pachycormiforms and aspidorhynchiforms. Since 1992 that number has increased to at least 62 nominal species (Schultze, 2015) and many others remain to be described.Some of the new teleosts are known from a locality – Ettling – that was modestly explored during the last years of the 20th century. Its first known fossil was a fish (Orthogonikleithrus hoelli; Arratia, 1997), whose description was based on the 23 specimens recovered at that time. Now, the same species is known from thousands of specimens, and other species, most of them new, have been excavated and are currently under study. The first Jurassic crossognathiform from the Northern Hemisphere (Bavarichthys incognitus; Arratia and Tischlinger, 2010) and a new aspidorhynchiform (Aspidorhynchus sanzenbacheri; Brito and Ebert, 2009) are also known only from this locality. For a list of materials and species from Ettling, see Ebert et al. (2015).The goal of this contribution is to describe a new fish family from the Solnhofen limestones that includes Ascalabos Graf zu Münster and a new genus and species. The phylogenetic position of the new family is studied and discussed.