Fossil Record 20(2): 159-172, doi: 10.5194/fr-20-159-2017
Miocene sepiids (Cephalopoda, Coleoidea) from Australia
expand article infoMartin Košt'ák‡, Andrej Ruman§, Ján Schlögl§, Natalia Hudáčková§, Dirk Fuchs|, Martin Mazuch‡
‡ Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Albertov 6, Prague 2, 128 43, Czech Republic§ Department of Geology and Paleontology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University, Mlynská dolina, Ilkovičova 6, 842 15 Bratislava, Slovakia| Earth and Planetary System Science, Department of Natural History Sciences, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
© Martin Košt'ák, Andrej Ruman, Ján Schlögl, Natalia Hudáčková, Dirk Fuchs, Martin Mazuch.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation: Košt'ák M, Ruman A, Schlögl J, Hudáčková N, Fuchs D, Mazuch M (2017) Miocene sepiids (Cephalopoda, Coleoidea) from Australia. Fossil Record 20(2): 159-172. https://doi.org/10.5194/fr-20-159-2017
Open Access
Abstract
Two sepiid genera, Notosepia Chapman, 1915, andSepia Linnaeus, 1758, are described from the Neogene deposits ofAustralia. A new and unique record of the middle Miocene Sepia sp.is reported from southern Australia. Based on similarities to contemporaneoussepiids, the new sepiid cuttlebonedescribed herein belongs to the genus Sepia. Notosepiacliftonensis is suggested herein to be a descendant of the archaeosepiidstem lineage. Microstructures (lamella-fibrillar nacre is the nacre Type II ofsepta and pillar prismatic layers) of the excellently preserved cuttlebone ofSepia sp. display a modern character of the phragmocone, fullycomparable to the recent taxa. The stratigraphically well-calibrated (basedon foraminifera) cuttlebone represents the first unambiguous fossil record ofthe genus Sepia from the Southern Hemisphere. It significantlyextends the biogeographical distribution of modern sepiids in the Miocene andsuggests the existence of a sepiid eastward migratory route. Moreover, thepresence of both conservative- and modern-type cuttlebones suggests a dualcolonisation of Australian waters: the first (archaeosepiid) during the lateEocene–late Oligocene and the second (sepiid) during the early Miocene.