LATE EOCENE FISHES FROM THE TUPELO BAY FORMATION OF SOUTH CAROLINA, USA

The Tupelo Bay Formation is an Eocene carbonate unit occurring in the outer Atlantic Coastal Plain of South Carolina, USA. This formation has yielded a rather diverse assemblage of late Eocene fishes that is dominated by sharks (squalomorph and galeomorph) but contains a lesser number of batoid and teleost fishes. Of the six orders of sharks represented, Carcharhiniformes is the most diverse, with teeth of 12 taxa identified, including Pachyscyllium sp., Premontreia (Oxyscyllium) gilberti, Hemipristis curvatus, Pseudabdounia claibornensis, Abdounia enniskilleni, A. minutissima, Carcharhinus sp., Negaprion gilmorei, Physogaleus aff contortus, P. aff. secundus, Galeocerdo clarkensis, and a new species, Galeorhinus semiserratus. Lamniformes are less diverse and represented by Otodus (Carcharocles) sokolowi?, Anomotodon novus, Striatolamia macrota, Brachycarcharias twiggsensis, Carchariidae indet., Macrorhizodus praecursor, Isurolamna inflata, and Alopias cf. alabamensis. Other, less diverse, orders nclude Hexanchiformes (Hexanchus agassizi), Squatiniformes (Squatina sp.), Heterodontiformes (Heterodontus vincenti), and Orectolobiformes (Nebrius thielensi, Eostegostoma angustum, Ginglymostomatidae indet.). Five batoids are represented by isolated teeth and rostral spines, including Pristis sp., Propristis schweinfurthi, “Aetomyleaeus” sp., “Myliobatis” sp., and “Rhinoptera” sp. Eleven bony fish taxa, Egertonia isodonta, Albula oweni, Sphyraena sp., Xiphiorhynchus sp., Trichiurides sagittidens, Scomberomorus sp., Sphyraenodus sp., Ostraciidae indet., Lobodus pedemontanus, Progymnodon hilgendorfi, and Cylindracanthus rectus, were identified based on teeth, jaws, and dermal armor. Teeth of E. angustum, I. inflata, Sphyraenodus sp., and L. pedemontanus represent rare records of these taxa in North America. The apparently depauperate batoid and teleost components of the assemblage may reflect taphonomic processes and/or a collecting bias towards larger specimens. Nonetheless, this assemblage increases our knowledge of the paleoenvironmental and paleobiogeographic distributions of the species represented.