Otoliths in situ in Pinichthys shirvanensis Bannikov, 2021 (Stromateidae) from the Tarkhanian (Langhian, Middle Miocene) of the northern Caucasus (Russia)

Abstract Otolith finds in situ are important for connecting the independent data sets of articulated fish skeletons and isolated otoliths in the fossil record. Here we describe an otolith in situ retrieved from a skeleton of the stromateid Pinichthys shirvanensis Bannikov, 2021, which was collected from the Tarkhanian (Langhian, Middle Miocene) from the prolific Pshekha River locality in the Krasnodar Region of the northern Caucasus, Russia. It represents the first find of an otolith in situ made in a fossil stromateoid skeleton. The extracted otolith is compared to fossil otolith-based species allocated to the genus Pampus . One of these species is being reallocated in the process to Pinichthys : Pinichthys steurbauti (Schwarzhans, 1994) from the late Oligocene to early Middle Miocene in the North Sea Basin.