Elisabeth Einarsson

First Record Of Soft-Shelled Turtles (Cryptodira, Trionychidae) From The Late Cretaceous Of Europe

ABSTRACT Fossil soft-shelled turtles (Trionychidae) have so far been recognized in all continents except Antarctica, based largely on remains preserving their diagnostic sculptured shell bones. The origin of the group is generally assumed to be in the Early Cretaceous of Asia, whereas they first appear in North America and Europe during the Late Cretaceous and Paleocene, respectively. Here we describe the first record of an indeterminate trionychid from the late early Campanian from southern Sweden, a part of the paleobiogeographically isolated Fenno-Scandian Shield, thus extending the stratigraphic record of the group in Europe back about 15 Ma into the Late Cretaceous. Our finding provides evidence against the currently favored dispersal scenario in which trionychid turtles are interpreted to have come to Europe first during the Paleocene either directly from North America or via Asia. The described indeterminate trionychid possibly represents a relic of a pre-Cretaceous endemic radiation of North European trionychids living mainly on the Fenno-Skandian Shield or it may indicate a potential lower latitude dispersal route of trionychids from Asia to North America via Europe during the Late Cretaceous.

Mosasaur bite marks on a plesiosaur propodial from the Campanian (Late Cretaceous) of southern Sweden

Although plesiosaurs and mosasaurs co-existed for about 35 million years at the end of the Cretaceous, the fossil record documenting interactions between these two groups of marine reptiles is meagre. The discovery of deeply incised scars on a limb bone of an immature polycotylid plesiosaur from the latest early Campanian (in the European two-fold division of the Campanian Stage) of the Kristianstad Basin, southern Sweden, is thus significant because it represents a rare example of predation or scavenging on an immature polycotylid plesiosaur by a large mosasaur.

Late Cretaceous (Campanian) actinopterygian fishes from the Kristianstad Basin of southern Sweden

Abstract Although a diverse range of aquatic vertebrates are documented from the Upper Cretaceous (mid-Campanian) marine strata of the Kristianstad Basin in southern Sweden, only chondrichthyans and marine amniotes have been described in detail to date. In contrast, coeval actinopterygians are virtually unreported, yet their remains are extremely abundant at most sampled localities. A comprehensive assessment of these fossils has identified the first Late Cretaceous actinopterygian fauna from the Fennoscandian Shield, incorporating indeterminate lepisosteids, the durophagous pycnodontid Anomoeodus subclavatus, the predatory pachycormid Protosphyraena sp., a large ichthyodectid, pachyrhizodontids resembling Pachyrhizodus, the enchodontid Enchodus cf. gladiolus and indeterminate small teleosts. These taxa are diagnosed mainly from isolated teeth and scales, implying substantial taphonomic loss prior to burial. Moreover, the prolific recovery of actinopterygian skeletal remnants in recent excavations suggests that historical collecting biases, rather than ecological paucity, have contributed to their under-representation in the Swedish Cretaceous record. Palaeobiogeographically, the Kristianstad Basin actinopterygians show compositional resemblance to assemblages from the Northern European Platform and the Western Interior Seaway of North America, advocating distributional communication across the Boreal proto-Atlantic Ocean.

Late Cretaceous dinosaurian remains from the Kristianstad Basin of southern Sweden

Abstract Mesozoic dinosaur fossils are exceptionally rare in Scandinavia. The Swedish record is typically depauperate, with the Kristianstad Basin of Skåne (Scania) yielding all of the known fossils from Swedish Cretaceous strata. Although highly fragmentary, these body remnants are important because they provide evidence of a relatively diverse fauna, including previously recognized hesperornithiform birds and leptoceratopsid ceratopsians, as well as indeterminate ornithopods that are confirmed here for the first time. In this paper, we describe three phalanges (from Åsen) and an incomplete right tibia (from Ugnsmunnarna) from the Kristianstad Basin. One of the phalanges appears to pertain to a leptoceratopsid ceratopsian, providing further evidence of these small ornithischians in the Cretaceous sediments of Sweden. The other two phalanges are interpreted as deriving from small ornithopods similar to Thescelosaurus and Parksosaurus. The tibia appears to represent the first evidence of a non-avian theropod dinosaur in the Cretaceous of Sweden, with a previous report of theropod remains based on fish teeth having been corrected by other authors. The remains described herein provide important additions to the enigmatic dinosaurian fauna that inhabited the Fennoscandian archipelago during the latest Cretaceous.

First evidence of the Cretaceous decapod crustacean Protocallianassa from Sweden

Abstract An assemblage of the burrowing ghost shrimp, Protocallianassa faujasi, is described, providing the first evidence of this decapod species from Sweden. The fossils occur in successions of the informal earliest late Campanian Belemnellocamax balsvikensis zone at Åsen and the latest early Campanian B. mammillatus zone at Ivö Klack, both in the Kristianstad Basin of NE Skåne. Numerous, heavily calcified chelipeds were found within a restricted bed at Åsen that was rich in carbonate-cemented nodules. Based on the burrowing lifestyle of modern mud shrimps, we interpret these nodules as infilled burrow chambers. The low abundance of molluscs within the Protocallianassa beds is also consistent with analogous extant communities, indicating that a similar ecologically exclusive relationship ruled within the Late Cretaceous shallow-marine ecosystems.

Lundadagarna i Historisk Geologi och Paleonotologi XII 17–18th of March, 2011

Lundadagarna i Historisk Geologi och Paleontologi is a conference held every second year at the Department of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences, Division of Geology, Lund University. Since the start in 1989, Lundadagarna has been an important opportunity for researchers from Scandinavia to get updated on the direction of the research field and new results, as well as a forum for discussing projects and exchanging ideas. As always, we are happy to announce a wide range of talks and posters within the field of historical geology and palaeontology. This year 35 participants contributed with 17 talks and 7 posters during Lundadagarna XII, 17–18th of March 2011. We would like to thank all participants for their contribution.