Fishes and squamate reptiles from the Pliocene sites of Berești and Mălușteni (eastern Romania) – A reassessment of old but poorly known material

This paper performs a revision of teleost fish and squamate reptile material from the Early Pliocene sites of Berești and Mălușteni (eastern Romania), found in old collections, but never described in detail. The fish assemblage includes a few cyprinid species (Rutilus robustus, Rutilus cf. R. frisii, Scardinius ponticus, Barbus sp., Tinca sp.), Silurus cf. S. soldatovi, pikes (Esox moldavicus and Esox sp.), as well as indeterminate remains of salmonid, percid and sparid fishes. Squamate reptiles are represented by isolated vertebral and cranial material assigned to the anguid lizard Pseudopus pannonicus, as well as by isolated snake vertebrae belonging to the viperid Macrovipera sp. This is the most taxonomically diverse Pliocene ectothermic vertebrate assemblage described so far from the Romanian Carpathian Foreland. The obtained results contribute to a better understanding of continental vertebrate fauna evolution in the eastern part of central Europe.