Fossil fishes from the Cenomanian (Upper Cretaceous) of Namoura, Lebanon

Abstract

Synopsis A new fish fauna is described from the middle Cenomanian of Namoura, Lebanon. Thirty species are described of which 13 are new. Six new genera are erected to contain seven of these new species. These new taxa include the teleosts Ctenodentelops striatus gen. et sp. nov. (Elopidae), Lebonichthys namourensis sp. nov. (Albulidae), Triplomystus noorae gen. et sp. nov. and Triplomys‐tus oligoscutatus gen. et sp. nov. (Paraclupeidae), Armigatus namourensis sp. nov. and Armigatus alticorpus sp. nov. (Clupeomorpha incertae sedis), Scombroclupea diminuta sp. nov. (Clupeiformes incertae sedis), Enchodus mecoanalis sp. nov. (Enchodontidae), Serrilepis prymnostrigos gen. et sp. nov. and Serrilepis minor gen. et sp. nov. (Halecidae), Paracentrus lebanonensis gen. et sp. nov. (Holocentroidea) and Gigapteryx lebanonensis gen. et sp. nov. (Euacanthopterygii incertae sedis). Two new species of the aspidorhynchid genus Belonostomus are recognised but left un‐named awaiting better material, as is one newspecies of pycnodont. Comparison of taxic composition of the faunas at Hakel, Hajula and Namoura suggests that at both species and generic level there is considerably more similarity between Hakel and Hajula than between either and Namoura. Furthermore, counts of actual specimens belonging to individual clades reveals a poverty of aulopiforms and myctophiforms at Namoura and may add to the evidence from non‐fish taxa that Namoura was much nearer to the contemporaneous land than was either Hakel or Hajula and may be of a slightly different age. Wider comparisons with other Cenomanian localities surrounding central Tethys suggest a phenetically closer relationship between Morocco, Lebanon and Slovenia than between any of these localities and Southeast England. Key words: TaxonomyTeleosteiTethysAnatomyFaunas Notes Note on authorship. This paper is the result of several independent efforts. C.E.D. selected and collected the fishes, sometimes under difficult circumstances and thereby justifies his authorship. Without him this paper would not have been written. C.P. purchased the specimens on behalf of The Natural History Museum and P.L.F. and C.P. subsequently identified these. Some of them were given to L.Y. and he described five of the species for his PhD work (Lu 1994). L.Y. left palaeontology upon completion of his PhD. P.L.F. has written and illustrated the work, with some information taken from the descriptive section from the PhD thesis of L.Y. PLF.