Sparus cf. brusinai ( Gorjanović-Kramberger, 1882 )

Gol’din, Pavel, Haiduc, Bogdan Stelian, Kovalchuk, Oleksandr, Górka, Marcin, Otryazhyi, Pavlo, Brânzilă, Mihai, Păun, Elena Ionela, Barkaszi, Zoltán, Ţibuleac, Paul & Răţoi, Bogdan Gabriel, 2020, The Volhynian (late Middle Miocene) marine fishes and mammals as proxies for the onset of the Eastern Paratethys re-colonisation by vertebrate fauna, Palaeontologia Electronica (a 43) 23 (3), pp. 1-20 : 7

Sparus cf. brusinai ( Gorjanović-Kramberger, 1882)

Figure 3 G-H

Material and locality. Dentary; Basarabi.

Description. The specimen is represented by a broken robust right dentary 26.9 mm long and 17.8 mm high. The dental field is convex with traces of sub-circular tooth crown bases on its surface. Teeth are arranged at least in three rows; their diameter varies within 1.5–2.0 mm. The diameter of the teeth in the symphysial part is 1 mm. The symphysial part is slightly isolated, with an oval pore on its outer edge. The symphysis is 4.6 mm high. The ascending part of the dentary is broad and convex, whereas the descending part is narrow and concave.

Comparison. The studied specimen is generally similar to the dentary of Sparus brusinai (NMNHU- P 53/4219, stored in the Department of Palaeontology of the National Museum of Natural History, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine) described by Tarashchuk (1957) from the Badenian deposits of Dobryvody (western Ukraine), although it is slightly larger.

Remarks. The dentary was assigned to Sparidae , and more precisely to Sparus , due to its shape and multi-row dentition. Proportions of the specimen as well as characteristic tooth bases allowed us to attribute it tentatively to Sparus brusinai ( Gorjanović-Kramberger, 1882) .