A new Pliensbachian (Early Jurassic) neoselachian shark fauna from southern Sweden

Hettangian to Pliensbachian neoselachian tooth assemblages from marine depo sits in northwest Europe are dominated by palaeospinacids. In the Toarcian, elasmobranch faunas tend to be more diverse and several other neoselachian groups have their first occurrence. A small, but surprisingly diverse, neo selachian tooth assemblage, comprising seven taxa, has been extracted from Pliensbachian sediments within the Rya Formation in southern Sweden. The fa una includes five synechodontiform species; Synechodus occultidens, S. enni skilleni, 'Synechodus' sp., Paraorthacodus sp., and Sphenodus sp. The remai ning two species include Hexanchidae indet. and Agaleus dorsetensis. The ex clusively Early Jurassic A. dorsetensis is separated from all other neosela chians on the basis of tooth morphology and is here included in the new, mo notypic family Agaleidae nov. The assemblage from the Rya Formation is the first selachian fauna to be recorded from the Jurassic of Sweden and it has a composition quite different from contemporary faunas found in other area s of Europe. The neoselachian part of the fauna is more diverse while hybod ont sharks are represented solely by a single species.