The first record of gars (Ginglymodi: Lepisosteidae) from the Upper Cretaceous of Bulgaria reveals a wider paleogeographic distribution of lepisosteids within the European Archipelago

Abstract

The bony-fishes of the clade Lepisosteidae, commonly called ‘gars’ or ‘gar-fish’, are a lineage of proficient piscivores with evolutionary history spanning about 150 million years, which are today represented by two genera inhabiting the freshwater and brackish areas of southeastern North America, Central America, and Cuba. This was not the case during the Late Cretaceous when lepisosteids were more diverse and had much wider geographical distribution. Gar fossils, albeit very fragmentary, are a common component of the Upper Cretaceous freshwater and brackish vertebrate assemblages in Europe, yet all of the pre-upper Campanian records come from the western and central parts of the Late Cretaceous European Archipelago. Here we describe new lepisosteid material from Bulgaria, comprising nine teeth and three scales found at the uppermost Santonian–lowermost Campanian Vrabchov Dol vertebrate locality. These fossils represent the easternmost record of gars within the European Archipelago to date. Despite being found in a lagoonal to foreshore deposits, the paleontological content of the locality, the incompleteness and preservational state of the material, as well as the predominantly non-marine ecology of modern and fossils gars suggest that these fossils belong to fishes which inhabited more inland, freshwater environments. The Vrabchov Dol lepisosteids remains are the first record of gars in Bulgaria and one of the rare documented occurrences of Mesozoic osteichthyans in the country. This material expands the paleobiogeographic distribution of the Lepisosteidae within the European Archipelago.