Francisco José Poyato-Ariza

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid | UAM · Department of Biology

Francischanos gen. nov. is erected herein as a replacement genus for Dastilbe moraesi Silva-Santos, 1955. The gonorynchiform chanid Dastilbe and its species arrangement have been a matter of debate for decades. Recent phylogenetic revision with a new cladistic analysis has shown that Dastilbe moraesi is a valid species, yet quite distinct from othe...

Schematic diagram of the CKL paleoenvironments. Four distinct ecotones were inferred from the fossil record: aquatic, helophytic, mesophytic and xeric (from right to left). The seasonal dynamics of changes in water level are illustrated in three scenes. Flooding allows the incorporation of in situ remains in the fossiliferous bed of the typical bio...

An alternative hypothesis concerning the paleoecological and paleoenvironmental depositional conditions of the Crato Konservat-Lagerstätte (CKL), Crato Formation, Aptian, NE Brazil, one of the most extraordinary Gondwana fossil sites, is proposed. Following an actualistic approach, the ecology of extant relatives of the most abundant and diverse fo...

The Quintanilla la Ojada section (Basque-Cantabrian Region, northern Spain) has yielded two assemblages of Late Cretaceous vertebrates, deposited during the Maastrichtian in coastal environments and related to a transgressive lag at the base of the Valdenoceda Formation. Numerous teeth of Elasmobranchii and Actinopterygii are the most prevailing fo...

El presente trabajo es un primer intento para detectar los modelos interpretativos en torno a la Evolución que se dan en diferentes ámbitos divulgativos y educativos. En él se analizan medios de divulgación científica audiovisual en forma de documentales, incidiendo en la interpretación que en ellos se da a los procesos evolutivos cuando éstos se m...

Fossil gonorynchiform fishes range from the Lower Cretaceous to the early Miocene, and are represented by a few dozen living species. The order is currently divided into two major clades: Gonorynchoidei, which includes the families Gonorynchidae and Kneriidae, and Chanoidei, encompassing a single family, Chanidae, with a single recent species, the...

The paleontological heritage of the fossil site of Las Hoyas (Early Cretaceous of Cuenca, Spain) is becoming a relevant part of the sociocultural identity of Castilla-La Mancha autonomous community in general, and of Cuenca province in particular. The most recent scientific advances, including several fossil findings that have had high scientific i...

Coprolites are some of the most abundant fossils at the Las Hoyas site, a well-known Early Cretaceous Konservat-Lagerstätte located in Cuenca, central Spain. The coprolite association is described, introducing taphonomic features and sedimentological properties. This study is based on a subsample of 433 fossils selected from some 2000 specimens col...

Coprolites morphotype features presented as a synthetic comparison of the corresponding description, with an appreciation of analogous coprolite shapes based on [64]. (PDF)

List of the 433 specimens studied, with their corresponding morphotype. (PDF)

2019. First fossil harvestmen (Arachnida: Opiliones) from Spain and notes on the fossil record of Opiliones. Palaeontologia Electronica 22.1.5A 1-18. https://doi.org/10.26879/ 855 palaeo-electronica.org/content/2019/2393-new-fossil-harvestmen AVAILABLE AT: https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2019/2393-new-fossil-harvestmen A B S T R A C T The...

El yacimiento paleontológico de Las Hoyas (Cuenca) ha ocupado reiteradamente un espacio en los medios autonómicos, nacionales e internacionales en los últimos años. Los descubrimientos y publicaciones científicas más recientes han hecho que la sociedad castellano-manchega redescubra su interés por la Paleontología. El acuerdo del 15 de marzo de 201...

The Konservat-Lagerstätte of Las Hoyas, from the Barremian of Cuenca, in central Spain, has provided a large amount of data whose integration reveals the uniqueness of this locality. Evidence provided by sedimentology, taphonomy, and paleobiology indicates that the paleoenvironment of Las Hoyas corresponds to that of a freshwater carbonatic lentic...

The Konservat-Lagerstätte of Las Hoyas, from the Barremian of Cuenca, in central Spain, has provided a large amount of data whose integration reveals the uniqueness of this locality. Evidence provided by sedimentology, taphonomy, and paleobiology indicates that the paleoenvironment of Las Hoyas corresponds to that of a freshwater carbonatic lentic...

One of the main pending, unsolved problems concerning the study of the pycnodont fishes is their phylogenetic relationships with other major actinopterygian groups. The Pycnodontiformes have often been proposed as the sister group of the Telostei or the Teleosteomorpha. The first extensive cladistic analysis on pycnodont relationships is hereby att...

Camerichthys lunae gen. et sp. nov. is a semionotiform actinopterygian fish described from the newly reported locality of San Andrés de San Pedro (province of Soria, Spain). The material, an articulated, partial three-dimensional specimen, was unearthed from the Tithonian–Berriasian beds of the Matute Formation (Tera Group) in the continental Camer...

The vertebrate-bearing beds of the Laño quarry (Condado de Treviño) are among the most relevant sites from the Late Cretaceous of Europe. Geologically, Laño and the adjacent region are set on the southern limb of the South-Cantabrian Synclinorium (SE Basque-Cantabrian Region, northern Iberian Peninsula). The Laño sites were discovered in 1984; thou...

The available data concerning the environmental changes and faunal replacements that occurred during the Cenomanian marine trans-gression in the North of Iberia are integrated and discussed on the basis of new evidence from the invertebrate and vertebrate fossil record. New stratigraphical data and the reassessment of known stratigraphic sections s...

Sylvienodus nov. gen. is erected as replacement for “Pycnodus” laveirensis, from the marine Cenomanian, Late Cretaceous, of Laveiras, Portugal. Significant differences between Sylvienodus and Pycnodus include: absence of dermocranial fenestra, a single premaxillary tooth, simple contact of arcocentra, extremely falcate dorsal and anal fins, lesser...

Amiiformes and Pycnodontiformes are non-teleostean actinopterygians that were key members of most Mesozoic fish assemblages, appearing often associated throughout their fossil record. Their phylogenetic and biogeographic patterns, however, are strikingly different. For pycnodonts, whose record extends from around 215 to 40 million years ago, up to...

Amiiforms and pycnodontiforms are two orders of neopterygian fishes that were broadly distributed, and frequently appeared together, during the Mesozoic. Comparison of their fossil record reveals both common traits and significant differences. They both appeared in the Western Tethys and reached maximum diversity during the Cretaceous. The differen...

Une nouvelle faune d'actinoptérygiens du Crétacé supérieur de Quintanilla la Ojada (Burgos, Espagne). Une nouvelle faune d'actinoptérygiens du Crétacé supérieur de Quintanilla la Ojada (Burgos, Espagne), localité située dans le Synclinorium de Villarcayo dans la région basco-cantabrique, est décrite ici. La plupart du matériel correspond à des dent...

Polazzodus coronatus, gen. et sp. nov., is a pycnodontiform fish from two proximate Late Cretaceous fossil sites near Polazzo, in northeastern Italy, where it is relatively abundant. Its autapomorphic characters are the presence of a distinctively shaped second dorsal ridge scale with an anterior projection; the presence of an olfactory fenestra on...

Erfoudichthys rosae gen. and sp. nov. is decribed on the basis of a single isolated head found in an unknown locality of the early Cenomanian Kem Kem beds, southeast of Morocco. The new species shows a combination of plesiomorphic and apomorphic characters among ostariophysans, such as a thin and elongated mesethmoid, a nasal formed by a cylindrica...

Akromystax tilmachiton, gen. et sp. nov., is described from Late Cretaceous Cenomanian beds in the Lebanon. The new taxon is the first new pycnodont to be published from the recently discovered locality of en Nammoura. It is a member of the Pycnodontidae that presents an unexpected combination of primitive and derived characters, including autapomo...

Analyses of the sedimentary facies and their geometrical relation indicate a tidal environment for Calizas de la Bicuerca Mb. (Albian-Cenamanian) during a transgressive setting. A vomerine dentition was unearthed during surface sampling of one stratigraphic section. This vomerine dentition has been assessed to the actinopterigian fish order Pycnodo...

The Upper Barremian deposits of La Huérguina Limestone Formation in the Serranía de Cuenca (Iberian Ranges, Spain) contain rich continental fossil associations preserved under a great diversity of taphonomic conditions in alluvial and lacustrine deposits. The vertebrate association retrieved from the Buenache de la Sierra Subbasin is described in d...

An Enantiornithes specimen from El Montsec was initially described as an immature individual based upon qualitative traits such as its relatively large orbit and overall proportions of the skull and the postcranium. In this study we re-evaluate the precise determination of the ontogenetic stage of this individual, establishing a cross-talk among ta...

Akromystax tilmachiton, gen. et sp. nov., is described from Late Cretaceous Cenomanian beds in the Lebanon. The new taxon is the first new pycnodont to be published from the recently discovered locality of en Nammoura. It is a member of the Pycnodontidae that presents an unexpected combination of primitive and derived characters, including autapomo...

Some examples of morphologic variation of body and fins morphology in Pycnodontiformes are shown; not all are butterfly fish-like, as the common place assumes. Pycnodonts are characterized by a heterodontous dentition; teeth on the vomer and the prearticulars are molariform, yet of diverse shapes, whereas teeth on the premaxilla and the dentary do...

Criticisms by Kriwet regarding recent work on pycnodont phylogeny are based on the use of additive characters. Therefore, applying transformation series in phylogenetic reconstruction is justified in theory and in practice, and an example of additional ontogenetic evidence supporting character ordering in pycnodonts is provided. Moreover, comments...

The nicely preserved new material of a pycnodontid fish previously reported as Macromesodon aff. M. bemissar-tens is has triggered a revision of this genus. As a result, it is evident that the holotype of the type species, M. macropterus, is quite different from all of the butterfly fish-like specimens that have been called this for over a century....

The Early Cretaceous Spanish localities of El Montsec and Las Hoyas have yielded the fish trails Undichna britannica and Undichna unisulca ichnosp, nov. respectively. The former consists of two intertwined waves, and was probably produced by the elopiform Ichthyemidion vidali. Undichna unisulca is characterized by having only a single sinusoidal wa...

We have discovered a mass of fossil bones from four juvenile birds at Las Hoyas in Cuenca, Spain, which show signs of having been digested. To our knowledge, this rare finding of an Early Cretaceous fossil of an apparently regurgitated pellet provides the first evidence that Mesozoic birds were prey animals.

Fish-bearing beds of early Cretaceous age crop out in the Arratia Valley, province of Biscay, along the nucleus of the Bilbao Anticlinorium in the Basque-Cantabrian Basin, northern Spain. Teleost fossils have been found in several stratigraphic levels, dated as Valanginian–Barremian, in the Villaro Member of the Villaro Formation. The Villaro Membe...

Stenamara mia is a new genus and species of a rare pycnodontiform fish from the Barremian, early Cretaceous, lacustrine beds of Las Hoyas, province of Cuenca, Spain. It was previously considered Eomesodon sp., but a number of characters clearly separates it from the genus Eomesodon: lack of prognathism; absence of nuchal plates; presence of a parie...

Die Fossilfundstätte Las Hoyas wurde zu Beginn der 80er Jahre durch den örtlichen Privatsammler Armando Díaz Romeral und den Geologen Santiago Prieto entdeckt (Prieto et Díaz-Romeral 1989). Sie bemerkten Fossilien in Kalkstein-Platten, die zum Bau von Mauern und Fusswegen verwandt wurden. Die ersten Arbeiten im Aufschluss wurden im Sommer 1985 unte...

This paper represents the first cladistic analysis of the interrelationships of all nominal fossil and living gonorynchiform genera. Gonorynchiformes is the basal group of the superorder Ostariophysi, and is confirmed as monophyletic on the basis of 12 synapomorphies. The Gonorynchiformes is be subdivided into two monophyletic suborders, Chanoidei...

The genus Anaethalion, from the Malm of Bavaria and France, is an elopiform fish of great importance for under-standing the origin and early diversification of major teleostean lineages. This paper deals with the type species Anaethalion angustus, which has been previously described in detail, but whose skull and body restorations were incomplete o...

The record of Mesozoic osteichthyan fishes from Spain is evaluated: the faunas of 51 localities are revised and catalogued, updating their age. This record is analysed from an integrative multidisciplinary perspective. The Mesozoic localities of Spain are mostly restricted to the north and central eastern half of the Iberian Peninsula, being most o...

The revision of Coelodus subdiscus Wenz 1989 (Early Cretaceous of Montsec, north-eastem Spain) has yielded new information on its anatomy, notably on cranial and caudal skeletons and c1oaca. The parietal bone has a brush-like extension, the parietal process, and seems to consist of two different fused portions, parietal and supratemporal. The ident...

The Recent coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae, one of the best known `living fossils', dwells in deep marine water. Fossil coelacanths have been globally related to marine environments, specially after the Triassic, an association that has led to a general belief that they have always been marine. Previous reports of fossil coelacanths in continental d...

Several relevant cranial and caudal endoskeleton characters show that the Early Cretaceous teleosts from Montsec and Las Hoyas previously reported as Leptolepis and Ascalabos are clearly different from these genera, and more diversified than previously thought. The Spanish fishes present a unique combination of characters, suggesting that they may...

A feathered skeleton of a Lower Cretaceous enantiornithine bird from Spain indicates that the modified diapsid skull of modern birds did not evolve until late in their evolution: Basal birds retained an essentially primitive diapsid design. The fossil provides data clarifying long-standing debates on the cranial morphology of the basalmost bird, Ar...

AVIAN flight is one of the most remarkable achievements of vertebrate evolution, yet there is little evidence of its early phases. Specimens of Archaeopteryx shed important (albeit controversial) light on this evolutionary phenomenon, but the large morphological (and almost certainly functional) gap between Archaeopteryx and modern avians remained...