New Early Cretaceous sharks (Chondrichthyes, Elasmobranchii) from deep-water deposits of Austria

Early Cretaceous elasmobranchs still are very insufficiently known despite all progress that has been accomplished in recent years. Here, a small elasmobranch assemblage is presented from the Valanginian of Austria that contributes significantly to a better understanding of early Cretaceous elasmobranch diversity. The new assemblage comprises two new carcharhiniform sharks, Altusmirus triquetrus gen. et sp. nov. and Fornicatus austriacus gen. et sp. nov., a new orectolobiform shark, Similiteroscyllium iniquus gen. et sp. nov., and a galeomorph shark tooth of uncertain affinities. The recent identification of Similiteroscyllium gen. nov. has shown that it has strong similarities with Ornatoscyllium rugasimulatum from the Lower Cretaceous of France. Significant differences of the tooth morphology of O. rugasimulatum and the type specimen O. freemani justify full reconsideration of the systematic position of O. rugasimulatum and require it to be reassigned to Similiteroscyllium gen. nov. described in this paper. The new assemblage described here, and those from the Valanginian of France and Poland comprising 30 additional taxa, indicates that Early Cretaceous elasmobranch diversity was significantly higher than previously assumed. Consequently, the supposed diversity decline of elasmobranchs across the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary represents a collecting bias rather than a real pattern.