The fish fauna of Ettling in the late Jurassic Solnhofen Archipelago (Bavaria, Germany)

Ebert, Martin (2024): The fish fauna of Ettling in the late Jurassic Solnhofen Archipelago (Bavaria, Germany). Dissertation, LMU München: Fakultät für Geowissenschaften

Abstract

The Konservat-Lagerstätte of Ettling, excavation site of the Jura-Museum Eichstätt (JME) since 2007, is unique among the Bavarian Late Jurassic Plattenkalk basins (known as the Solnhofen Archipelago) in its abundant, extremely well-preserved fossil vertebrates, almost exclusively fishes. In the past 20 years I have been excavating, preparing, and cataloguing about 4000 fishes from this locality. I published scientific papers about the fish fauna focusing on the following actinopterygians: ginglymodins, pycnodontiforms, halecomorphs, aspidorynchiforms, “pholidophoriforms”, and “true” teleosts. Ettling has yielded six new fish species described so far (Piranhamesodon pinnatomus Kölbl-Ebert, Ebert, Bellwood & Schulbert, 2018; Macrosemimimus fegerti Schröder, López-Arbarello & Ebert, 2012; Aspidorhynchus sanzenbacheri Brito & Ebert, 2009; Bavarichthys incognitus Arratia & Tischlinger, 2010; Orthogonikleithrus hoelli Arratia, 1997 and Ebertichthys ettlingensis Arratia, 2016). Further new taxa are under study. Upper and lower Ettling strata differ in faunal content, with the lower strata dominated by the small teleost Orthogonikleithrus hoelli (absent from the upper strata, where other prey fish, Leptolepides sp., Allothrissops sp. and Tharsis sp., occur instead). Pharyngeal and stomach contents of Ettling fish provide direct evidence that Orthogonikleithrus hoelli was a primary food source during early Ettling times; additional information comes from thousands of coprolites. Scarcity of ammonites and the near absence of coleoids in Ettling differ markedly from the situation at other Upper Jurassic Plattenkalk localities in the region (e.g., Brunn, Eichstätt, Nusplingen, Painten, Schamhaupten, Solnhofen, Zandt, Wattendorf and the Mörnsheim beds), where they are more common. The comparison of the early Tithonian (eigeltingense horizon) fish fauna from Ettling, with the above-mentioned localities of southern Germany and Cerin (France) shows how much the Ettling fish fauna differs from other sites, particularly also from the site Eichstätt, which is of the same stratigraphic age. Such faunal differences and additional sedimentological evidence indicate a significant difference in environment and ecology between these sites and their surroundings. The evidence indicates that the lower part of the Ettling deposits represents an independent, isolated basin within the larger Upper Jurassic “Solnhofen Archipelago”, a shallow subtropical marine environment featuring scattered islands, sponge-microbial and coral reefs, sandbars, and deeper basins on a vast carbonate platform along the northern margin of the Tethys Ocean.

• Dokumententyp: Dissertationen (Dissertation, LMU München)
• Themengebiete: 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik ; 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 550 Geowissenschaften
• Fakultäten: Fakultät für Geowissenschaften
• Sprache der Hochschulschrift: Englisch
• Datum der mündlichen Prüfung: 5. August 2024
• 1. Bericht­erstatter:in: Rauhut, Oliver