A new elasmobranch fauna from the early Miocene of Sharbithat (Sultanate of Oman) reveals the teeth of an ancient fantail stingray

Abstract

Acknowledgement. We gratefully thank Jorge Carrillo-Briceño and Gloria Arratia for their constructive criticism and comments on the manuscript. We also wish to thank the Ministry of Heritage and Tourism of the Sultanate of Oman for granting us permission to carry out fieldwork along the Omani Arabian sea shores, with specific reference to H.E. Salim Mohammed Al Mahruqi, Minister; Mr. Sultan Said Al-Bakri, Director General for Archaeology; Mr. Khamis Al Asmi, Director of the Department of Excavations and Archaeological Studies; M. Ali Al Mashani of the Salalah department. We would like to thank the Consultative Commission for Excavations Abroad of the French Ministry of European and Foreign Affairs, the Agence Nationale de la Recherche with the NeoArabia Program (ANR-16-CE03-0007, CNRS, Inrap, MNHN) for funding the archaeological Mission «Archaeology of the Arabian Sheashores»

Here we describe a new elasmobranch assemblage consisting of isolated dental material from the Aquitanian near-shore marine deposits of the Shuwayr and Warak formations at Sharbithat, in eastern Sultanate of Oman. The faunal composition clearly indicates affinities to other early Miocene elasmobranch-bearing localities worldwide. This assemblage is predominantly composed of large and common pelagic sharks as well as teeth attributable to a new species of fantail stingray, Taeniurops tosii, as old as the oldest undisputable fossil records of Taeniurops. The study of this fossil assemblage presented here improves the knowledge of the ancient elasmobranchs that frequented the eastern Arabian coasts during the closure of the Neotethys and the birth of the Arabian Sea.