Oryctos
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Accès privé :
| volume 6, 2006 |
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Dan Grigorescu & Emese Kazar, A new Middle Miocene odontocete (Mammalia: Cetacea) locality and the Sarmatian Marine Mammal Event in the Central Paratethys. Oryctos 6, 53-68.
A few disarticulated odontocete (Cetacea: Odontoceti) fossils have been found at Comăneşti in western Romania. The locality had hitherto yielded only brackish mollusks and terrestrial micromammals. The entire stratigraphic section was divided by Radulescu & Samson (in Feru et al., 1980) into two local biostratigraphic units: Comăneşti-1 (Sarmatian) and Comăneşti-2 (Pannonian). On the basis of micromammals of the same deposits, these two authors assigned Comăneşti-1 to the MN8 zone of the Mediterranean Neogene. This can be correlated with the upper Volhynian of the Eastern Paratethys, possibly including also the base of the Bessarabian. The fossils are assigned to "Champsodelphis” fuchsii Brandt, 1873, a species already known from six other localities in the Carpathian Basin, specifically from the Vienna Basin of Austria, south Hungary, and western Romania. Several other late Middle Miocene odontocete localities are known from the Carpathian Basin as well. In all cases where zonation was possible, the stratigraphic position of the occurrences is lower Sarmatian, including the upper Ervilia Zone (ca. 12 Ma). This correlation suggests that there was a ‘marine mammal event’ in the Central Paratethys at that chronostratigraphic level, which was the re-appearance of small odontocetes, mysticetes, and phocid seals from the Eastern Paratethys. The Sarmatian ‘Marine Mammal Event’ followed the marine regression of the late Badenian (ca. 13 Ma), which caused the apparent disappearance of marine mammals in this area. Sperm whales and sirenians, all well-documented from the Middle Badenian, failed to invade the Central Paratethys again.
Key words: Miocene, Sarmatian, Central Paratethys, Romania, Odontoceti.
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