Stomatopod predation upon gastropods from the Korytnica Basin, and from other classical Miocene localitities in Europe

Abstract

The predation of the stomatopod crustaceans (oder Stomatopoda, subclass Eumalacostraca, superclass Crustacea) upon diverse gastropods is recognised within the much diversified, shallow-marine communities of the Korytnica Basin (Middle Miocene; souther slopes of the Holy Cross Mountains, Central Poland). The results of both the spearing and smashing activity of stomatopods are evident to documnet diverse methids of their attacks upon the gastropods, and to be well comparable to those recently presented either from the Plio-Pleistocene of Florida, or from the Holocene of Benguela region, off south-western Africa. The reparated ("regenerated") injuries in shells, indicative of the stomatopod attacks upon live gastropods, are first recorded from the Geologic Past. The larger damages, that destroy the gastropod shells almost totally, are compared to those produced by predatory crabs. A high precentage (up to 54.4%) of the shells subjected to stomatopod attacks suggests the stopatopod predation to have been of considerable importance in the ecological history of the tropical.subtropical, Indo-Pacific influenced, Korytnica Basin. An overview of the gastropod monographs from other Miocene basins in Europe (the Tethyan Mediterranean, the Atlantic Gulfs, the North Sea Basin, and the so-called Paratethus basins) delivers many examples of shell famages by stomatopods, compatible with those from the Korytnica Basin. All these recognitions extend importantly the range of the predatory behavior of stomatopods down to the Tertiary, precisely to the Miocene epoch, the Korytnica Basin of which is dated as about 15 m.y. ago, close to the Langhian/Serravallian stage boundary in the standard geochronologic scale.