Where: Biscay, Spain (43.1° N, 2.8° W: paleocoordinates 33.9° N, 8.8° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

When: Villaro Member (Villaro Formation), Valanginian to Valanginian (139.8 - 125.0 Ma)

• A Lower Cretaceous succession that is 5000 m thick on average characterizes this area of the basin. In the area studied, the Villaro Formation (Pujalte,1982) is part of this sedimentary succession; this formal unit is divided into three members comprising

•a total thickness of 1400 m of siliciclastic and scarce carbonate deposits interpreted as having accumulated in deltaic and lacustrine conditions; the upper 1100 m of this succession is referred to the Villaro Member. The Villaro Formation is overlain by a terrigenous and carbonate marine succession of Barremian–Aptian age included in the Urgonian Complex The new taxon described here was recovered from the base of sequence III and the upper part of sequence IV

•

•The presence of the ammonite Deshayesites deshayesi at the base of the succession that overlies the Villaro Member indicates an early Aptian age (Casey, 1961), so that this member can be considered as pre-early Aptian in age.

Environment/lithology: lacustrine - large; lithified shale and lithified sandstone

Size class: macrofossils

Collection methods: The new material described here belongs to the collections of the Laboratorio de Paleontologı ´a of the Universidad del Paı´s Vasco/Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Bilbao, Spain (UPVLP) and to the Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Aulava (MCNA). Eight specimens: UPVLP 1603, holotype, part and counterpart plus silicone peels of both part and counterpart. UPVLP 1604, part and counterpart of part of an abdominal region with part of the skull, plus one silicone peel. UPVLP 1605, complete,partially disarticulated, juvenile specimen. MCNA 1166, four articulated juvenile specimens, two of them almost complete and two very incomplete, in a single

•slab.

Primary reference: F. J. Poyato-Ariza, M. A. Lopez-Horgue, and F. García-Garmilla. 2000. A new early Cretaceous clupeomorph fish from the Arratia Valley, Basque Country, Spain. Cretaceous Research 21:571-585 [M. Bell/M. Bell/M. Bell]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 144740: authorized by Mark Bell, entered by Mark Bell on 16.05.2013

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)