Palaeoecology and taphonomy of an extraordinary whale barnacle accumulation from the Plio-Pleistocene of Ecuador

Biotically constrained palaeoenvironmental conditions of a mid-Holocene intertidal lagoon on the southern shore of the Arabian Gulf: evidence associated with a whale skeleton at Musaffah, Abu Dhabi, UAE

“…Bivalvia counted umbos (þ ¼ present but no umbos); gastropoda counted apices. (as seen by Bianucci et al, 2006b) which supports their association with the whale remains at Musaffah and suggests that the remains were not exposed for long prior to burial. C. diadema is mainly associated with humpback whales today (Pilsbury, 1916;Nilsson-Cantell, 1978).…”

“…C. diadema is mainly associated with humpback whales today (Pilsbury, 1916;Nilsson-Cantell, 1978). Indeed Bianucci et al, (2006b) have used the occurrence of the C. diadema in the PlioPleistocene Canoa and Tablazo Formation deposits in Ecuador to infer the presence of humpback whales in the Canoa Basin at that time. Furthermore, they suggested that the presence of humpback whales must have been sufficiently long lasting for a build-up of such an exceptional assemblage of Coronula remains and that they may have been breeding in the basin.…”

“…Furthermore, they suggested that the presence of humpback whales must have been sufficiently long lasting for a build-up of such an exceptional assemblage of Coronula remains and that they may have been breeding in the basin. Bianucci et al (2006b) acknowledged, however, that the C. diadema can be found on other whale species such as fin, blue, right and sperm whales. For example Nilsson-Cantell (1939) reported C. diadema as present on the northern bottle-nosed whale Hyperoodon ampullatus off the Faroes, with further accounts of this barnacle on sperm whales Physeter catodon (Hiro, 1935), southern right whale Eubalaena australis (Barnard, 1924) and blue whales B. musculus (NilssonCantell, 1939).…”

Fossil whale barnacles from the lower Pleistocene of Sicily shed light on the coeval Mediterranean cetacean fauna

“…Although all the fossil occurrences of whale barnacles published so far are reasonably referable to the Pliocene or Quaternary (COLLARETA et al, 2016a, and previous references therein), some unpublished coronulid specimens from Taiwan may be older (i.e., late Miocene; John BUCKERIDGE, personal communication, 2018). Based on the remarkable host preferences of extant whale barnacle species, and considering that the detachment of coronulid shells from their host's skin has been observed along migration routes and especially in cetacean breeding/calving grounds (BIA- NUCCI et al, 2006b, and references therein), the fossil remains of whale barnacles have recently been interpreted as markers of ancient mysticete distributional and migration patterns (BIANUCCI et al, 2006a(BIANUCCI et al, , 2006bÁLVAREZ-FERNÁNDEZ et al, 2014;BOSSELAERS & COLLARETA, 2016;COLLARETA et al, 2016bCOLLARETA et al, , 2017BOSSELAERS et al, 2017). From this perspective, whale barnacle remains cease to be exclusively regarded as body fossils, assuming instead an additional role -i.e., providing indirect evidence for the passage of their cetacean hosts -that makes them conceptually similar to trace fossils.…”

“…Based on this record, mainly consisting of upper Pliocene to mid-lower Pleistocene occurrences of the extinct species Coronula bifida BRONN, 1831, and few upper lower Pleistocene (Calabrian) occurrences of the extant species Coronula diadema, BIANUCCI et al (2006aBIANUCCI et al ( , 2006b proposed that, unlike today, balaenopteroid whales may have used the Mediterranean as a breeding ground during the latest Neogene and part of the Quaternary.…”