The Indo-Pacific affinities of some Maltese tertiary fossils

Abstract

A review of the Maltese fossil record reveals an unsuspected marked IndoPacific affinity, suggesting a biostratigraphic link between the central Mediterranean and the Indo-Pacific in mid-Tertiary times. The family and sometimes even the genus of some Maltese Oligo-Miocene fossils still survive in the Indo-Pacific province after having become completely extinct from the Mediterranean region. The fossils reviewed in this paper are the Cidaridae (which are also revised to reveal the presence of Prionocidaris and Phyllacanthus) , Coelopleurus, Echinoneus, Laganum, Apatopygus, Clypeaster, Tomistoma, Trionyx, Trilasmis, J{ uphus, and Nautilus - all of which have an Indo-Pacific affinity. The survival of such a fauna in the Indo-Pacific region is attributed to two main factors: the former connection of Tethys to the Indo-Pacific, thereby allowing eastward migration of the central Mediterranean fauna into this Ocean, and climatic and other ecological conditions prevailing in the central Mediterranean region during mid-Tertiary times having been analogous to those now prevailing in the Indo-Pacific.