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Diverse and durophagous: Early Carboniferous chondrichthyans from the Scottish Borders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2018

Kelly R. Richards ,
Janet E. Sherwin ,
Timothy R. Smithson ,
Rebecca F. Bennion ,
Sarah J. Davies ,
John E. A. Marshall  and
Jennifer A. Clack
Kelly R. Richards*
Affiliation:
University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK.
Janet E. Sherwin
Affiliation:
School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK.
Timothy R. Smithson
Affiliation:
University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK.
Rebecca F. Bennion*
Affiliation:
University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK.
Sarah J. Davies
Affiliation:
School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK.
John E. A. Marshall
Affiliation:
Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, National Oceanography Centre, European Way, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK.
Jennifer A. Clack
Affiliation:
University Museum of Zoology, Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK.
*
*Current address: University of Oxford Museum of Natural History, Parks Road, Oxford, OX3 1PW, UK.
**Current addresses: (1) Geology Research Unit, Université de Liège, 14 Allée du 6 Août, 4000 Liège, Belgium. (2) Directorate of Earth and History of Life, Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, 29 rue Vautier, 1000 Brussels, Belgium.
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Abstract

Chondrichthyan teeth from a new locality in the Scottish Borders supply additional evidence of Early Carboniferous chondrichthyans in the UK. The interbedded dolostones and siltstones of the Ballagan Formation exposed along Whitrope Burn are interpreted as representing a restricted lagoonal environment that received significant amounts of land-derived sediment. This site is palynologically dated to the latest Tournaisian–early Viséan. The diverse dental fauna documented here is dominated by large crushing holocephalan toothplates, with very few, small non-crushing chondrichthyan teeth. Two new taxa are named and described. Our samples are consistent with worldwide evidence that chondrichthyan crushing faunas are common following the Hangenberg extinction event. The lagoonal habitat represented by Whitrope Burn may represent a temporary refugium that was host to a near-relict fauna dominated by large holocephalan chondrichthyans with crushing dentitions. Many of these had already become scarce in other localities by the Viséan and become extinct later in the Carboniferous. This fauna provides evidence of early endemism or niche separation within European chondrichthyan faunas at this time. This evidence points to a complex picture in which the diversity of durophagous chondrichthyans is controlled by narrow spatial shifts in niche availability over time.

Keywords

Ballagan Formationpost-HangenbergteethTournaisian

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