Eomanta, PFEIL, 1981

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 : 142

GENUS † EOMANTA PFEIL, 1981

Included species: † Eomanta kowaldi Pfeil, 1981 .

Synonymy: † Mobula irenae Pfeil, 1981 .

Occurrences: Early Oligocene of Galon-Grabens, south Germany ( Pfeil, 1981).

Remarks: The extinct genus † Eomanta Pfeil, 1981 is probably the most overlooked fossil belonging to the mobulids. This taxon occurs in the Early Oligocene of Galon-Grabens, south Germany and was described from a unique tooth attributed to the species † E. kowaldi Pfeil, 1981 . Pfeil (1981) reported a short diagnosis for the genus † Eomanta . It is characterized by: a high crown with extended labial and lingual faces; a flat occlusal surface and a dejected labial face, many small deep anastomosing furrows on the upper part of the labial face; a relatively straight transversal crest; an unnoticeable labial visor and a well-centred root in the middle of the basal face of the crown, relatively thick without exceeding the labiolingual extremities of basal edge of the crown. With the exception of the lack of labial visor, all these characters are noticeable in many Recent and fossil mobulids as in the living Mo. tarapacana or † Mo. fragilis , respectively. Pfeil (1981) excluded other mobulid-like teeth recovered in the same fossil layer that he attributed to † Mobula irenae Pfeil, 1981 . Since this time, † Eomanta has been considered alternatively as an intermediate form between Mobula and Manta ( Pfeil, 1981) , a synonym of Mobula ( Cappetta, 1987, 2006; Cappetta & Stringer, 2002), or as a nomen dubium ( Cicimurri & Knight, 2009). The two teeth attributed to † Mo. irenae by Pfeil (1981: figs 1–2, pl. 1) show a relatively high crown; a flat occlusal surface (especially in the holotype) with a dejected labial face, some small deep furrows on the apical part of the labial face and a labial visor; a transversal crest relatively straight; an unnoticeable labial visor and a well-centred root in the middle of the basal face of the crown, relatively thick but never exceeding the labiolingual extremities of the basal edge of the crown. Pfeil (1981) suggested that the teeth attributed to † Mo. irenae are distinct from those attributed to † E. kowaldi in having a more salient lingual and labial visor and a lower crown. Based on improved sampling and broader comparisons of mobulid heterodonty and on the overview of the fossil record, we consider that the original material attributed to † Mo. irenae cannot be excluded from † E. kowaldi and should be considered as conspecific (contrary to Cicimurri & Knight, 2009, who considered † Mo. irenae as a possible junior synonym of † Mo. loupianensis ). Other isolated teeth are sometimes attributed to the mobulids but should be considered with serious caution. They often represent damaged teeth that resemble mobulid dental material but actually belong to other batoid taxa (e.g. in Van Den Eeckhaut & De Schutter, 2009).

NEW MOBULIDS FROM THE LATE EOCENE OF SOUTH- WEST MOROCCO

Three new taxa belonging to mobulids have been recognized in the dental remains recovered south of Ad Dahkla in the so-called ‘Western Sahara’, currently in south-western Morocco. The preliminary report of these faunas ( Adnet et al., 2010) suggested a late Middle Eocene–Late Eocene age, although Underwood et al. (2011) referred these faunas to the Late Eocene only, based on common occurrences with the well-dated Fayum area. The attribution of the taxa described here to three different genera is based on morphological comparisons with previously detailed taxa.