The First Record of a Lungfish (Dipnoi, Sarcopterygii) in the Famennian Deposits (Upper Devonian) of the Tver Oblast

Acta Geologica Polonica

“…The Plavskian RS assemblage demonstrates an unusually high number of various dipnoans comprising 10 species (Lebedev and Lukševičs 2018). Despite only one cited dipnoan record, Dipterus sp., in the Lebedyanian RS assemblage in the Central Devonian Field (Obrucheva and Obrucheva 1977;Esin et al 2000;) and, apart from Anchidipterus dariae Krupina in Lebedev et al, 2019 in the Bilovo Lebedyanian RS assemblage in the Main Devonian Field (Lebedev et al 2019), there are not less than two or three other dipnoan species in each of these two communities (work in progress). This exceeds the amount of all other species in other than dipnoan high-rank systematic categories taken separately.…”

“…Apart from the Bilovo Formation itself, the uppermost part of the underlying Tuder Formation and the lower member of the Lnyanka Formation, correlated respectively to the Eletsian, Lebedyanian and Optukhovian RS, are exposed in this section (Sammet 1973;Verbitskiy et al 2012). Almost the entire succession is rich in vertebrate macroremains; the assemblage includes antiarch placoderms, dunkleosteid arthrodires, porolepiform, struniiform, osteolepiform and dipnoiform sarcopterygians (Lebedev et al 2019). The layer within the Bilovo Formation which yielded the new elasmobranch spine is rich in spiriferid brachiopods characteristic of the Lebedyanian RS (Rodionova et al 1995).…”

“…Large numbers of individuals in the community belonging to the same species signals abundant food resources of the same type taken by these consumers. In contrast, differentiated secondary consumers belonging to the same systematic group most likely fed on diversified types of food as demonstrated by the variable structure of their feeding apparatuses, for example in dipnoans (Lebedev et al 2019).…”

Structure, Growth and Histology of Gnathal Elements in Dunkleosteus (Arthrodira, Placodermi), with a Description of a New Species from the Famennian (Upper Devonian) of the Tver Region (North-Western Russia)

“…The list of vertebrate taxa from the Bilovo Formation, including earlier published data [36,38] and newly obtained information include scales of acanthodians "Devononchus" tenuispinus? and Acanthodes sp.…”

“…Their research is aimed at collecting Upper Devonian fossils. More recent collecting from the Bilovo locality resulted in a number of recent papers describing new taxa, and revising previously collected material of brachiopods [32], cephalopods [33], antiarchs [34][35][36][37], dipnoans [38] and chondrichthyans [39]. In 2015, the vertebrate collection of the Museum was enriched by Daniil V. Linkevich, who discovered one of the first arthrodire specimens from the MDF (the first being from the Tērvete Formation of Latvia; [40]), a dunkleosteid, from Famennian outcrops in the Tver Region, Russia, adding to our knowledge on the composition and structure of Famennian vertebrate assemblages in this region.…”