Schweizerbart Science Publishers, Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie - Abhandlungen, 1(244), p. 1-8, 2007
DOI: 10.1127/0077-7749/2007/0244-0001
Full text: Download
Chondrichthyan teeth are common fossils in late Paleozoic rock units worldwide, and potentially useful in biogeographic, biostratigraphic, paleoecological, and taphonomic studies. Here I present a brief description of a newly-discovered chondrichthyan macrofauna from the LaSalle Limestone Member of the Bond Formation (Missourian, Upper Pennsylvanian, Late Carboniferous) of La Salle County, Illinois. Recent fieldwork has yielded isolated remains of four chondrichthyan tooth taxa (Petalodus ohioensis, Peripristis semicircularis, Helodus cf. simplex, Deltodus angularis), which are briefly described and compared to similar taxa from across the globe. This is the first publication to provide explicit stratigraphic and locality data for a chondrichthyan fauna from Illinois, and raises potential for future discoveries of chondrichthyan tooth and body fossils.