Fish Assemblages from the Upper Devonian of the South Urals (Russia)

Abstract—Diverse and abundant fish remains are described from the Upper Devonian of 10 sections on the western slope of the South Urals. The distribution of the fish taxa was analyzed in these sections, and the fish assemblages have been established in all Frasnian and Famennian regional stages of that region. The assemblages include taxonomically diverse phoebodontiforms, jalodontiform, symmoriiforms, ctenacanthiforms, squatinactiform, and euselachians chondrichthyans. Ten fish taxa are reported in the Upper Devonian of the South Urals at first time. The occurrence of Phoebodus latus in the Lower–Middle triangularis Zone is the youngest in the world. This species survived the Kellwasser biotic crisis. The new data of occurrence of Phoebodus species in the studied sections confirms the boundaries of the phoebodontid zones.