Mobula loupianensis, Cappetta, 1970

Adnet, Sylvain, Cappetta, Henri, Guinot, Guillaume & Sciara, Giuseppe Notarbartolo Di, 2012, Evolutionary history of the devilrays (Chondrichthyes: Myliobatiformes) from fossil and morphological inference, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 166 (1), pp. 132-159 : 139

† MOBULA LOUPIANENSIS CAPPETTA, 1970

Occurrences: Langhian of southern France ( Cappetta, 1970) and North Carolina ( Purdy et al., 2001). Serravallian of Portugal ( Jonet, 1976).

Remarks: Particularly well illustrated by Jonet (1976: figs 1–13) with male (monocupsidate teeth) and female (not well cuspidate) specimens, the morphology of † Mo. loupianensis is clearly close to that observed in the living species Mo. hypostoma . The tooth crown of males has a massive central cusp with sometimes a pair of small denticles located at each extremity in occlusal view. The tooth crown of females is devoid of a cusp but the visor can occasionally be very slightly irregular in occlusal view. Dental differences with the living species are tenuous but the teeth of † Mo. loupianensis (particularly the females) present a smoother enameloid than in Mo. hypostoma , in which the labial face is slightly marked by some folds. Cicimurri & Knight (2009: fig. 9A–F) reported a large variety of morphotypes of mobulids from the upper Chattian of South Carolina. The authors considered that they all belong to a unique species attributed to † Mo. cf. loupianensis and suggested that all the Neogene species such as † Mo. pectinata , † Mobula irenae , and † Mo. loupianensis are possibly conspecific. However, their material differs from the distinctive Miocene Mo. loupianensis in the presence of an irregular surface, sometimes dotted by deep folds on the labial face of the crown and by the root being higher than wide. If the Chattian species belongs to the mobulid group with comb-like teeth (close to the Mo. hypostoma / Mo. rochebrunei subgroup), they probably belong to a species other than † Mo. loupianensis .