Elasmobranch teeth from the mid-Cretaceous sequence of the Mangyshlak Mountains, Western Kazakhstan

Abstract

A relatively small assemblage of the elasmobranch teeth collected in the mid-Cretaceous (Upper Albian through Coniacian) sequence of the Mangyshlak Mountains, Western Kazakhstan (see MARCINOWSKI & al. 1996; this volume) is dominated by the hybodontoids of the genus Ptychodus AGASSIZ, 1838, associated with few proper sharks. Within the Ptychodus assemblage that comprises the common AGASSIZ’ species mammiIlaris, rugosus, polygyrus, and the rare latissimus, indicated is the presence of P. rugosus DIXON, 1850, the species only occasionally recorded in Europe. The whole assemblage is, however, identical with that known from the Albian and the Upper Cretaceous sequences of Europe, and this supports an assignment of the Mangyshlak area to the European Zoogeographic Realm during the mid-Cretaceous.