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Taverne L. & Capasso L, 2014, Ostéologie et phylogénie des Coccodontidae, une famille remarquable de poissons Pycnodontiformes du Crétacé supérieur marin du Liban, avec la description de deux nouveaux genres. (43 textpages with 43 text-figures) Abstract: The Coccodontidae are an endemic and highly specialized pycnodontid fish family from the marine Cenomanian (Late Cretaceous) of Lebanon. Four genera are today ranged in this family, Coccodus, Hensodon, Trewavasia and Ichthyoceros. The present paper adds two new monospecific genera to the Coccodontidae, Paracoccodus gen. nov. and Corusichthys gen. nov. The osteology of all these fossil fishes is studied in details and the phylogeny within the family is established. Coccodus is the less evolved member of the family. It has a fusiform and naked body, very short dorsal and anal fins and less than 20 vertebral segments before the epichordal series. Its dermosupraoccipital develops a strong horn and a short nuchal process. Its cleithrum bears three long spines, one anterior and two posterior. However, its skull remains close to the usual pycnodontid cranial morphotype. Paracoccodus is only known by its head and the beginning of its vertebral axis. It has an occipital horn and a short nuchal process as in Coccodus but it differs from this last genus by some other cranial characters. Its skull is also fundamentally pycnodontid-shaped. Corusichthys, Hensodon and Trewavasia differ more markedly from the pycnodontid cranial scheme. They exhibit a vertically oriented snout, frontal horns and a gigantic nuchal process formed by the the dermosupraoccipital, the parietal and the supratemporal. They have lost the occipital horn. Corusichthys still possesses a fusiform body, less than 20 vertebral segments and short dorsal and anal fins. There is a spiny crest on the dermosupraoccipital and only one pair of scale-bars located in the pelvic region. Hensodon and Trewavasia are more specialized. They are deep-bodied. The frontal horns are horizontally oriented. A long crest runs through the dermopterotic. The premaxilla is partly hidden by the prefrontal. There are between 25 and 30 vertebral segments before the epichordal elements. The dorsal and anal fins are larger. The fin rays are segmented but not branched. One hypochordal is hypertrophied. A large spiny postcloacal scute is present. Hensodon is characterized by its atrophied jaws and the presence of a few scale-bars in the abdominal region. In Trewavasia, the frontal horns are flattened and sutured together, forming a bony visor before the orbit. The body is entirely covered by large spiny scutes. It is also shown that Ichthyoceros does not belong to the Coccodontidae but to the Gladiopycnodontidae, a family allied to the Coccodontidae and forming with them the super-family Coccodontoidea. Taverne L. & Capasso L., 2014, Ostéologie et relations phylogénétiques des Gebrayelichtyidae (Halecostomi, Pycnodontomorpha), une extraordinaire famille de poissons du Crétacé supérieur marin du Liban, avec la description d un nouveau genre. (24 textpages with 23 text-figures) Abstract: The Gebrayelichthyidae are an extraordinary fossil fish family endemic from the marine Cenomanian deposits of Lebanon. They are much deeper than long because of their short body and the presence of a very elongated nuchal horn and of a gigantic cleithrum forming a long ventral keel. Until now, the family was monogeneric and contained only the genus Gebrayelichthys with two species, G. uyenoi and G. vexillarius. A second gebrayelichthyid genus, Maraldichthys verticalis gen. and sp. nov. is herein described. The osteology of the two genera is studied in details. Their skull exhibits the typical pycnodontiform morphology, with a long and massive mesethmoid including the lateral ethmoids, a dermosupraoccipital, a long toothless parasphenoid, a dermohyomandibula associated to the hyomandibula, a reduced opercle, no subopercle and interopercle, a hypertrophied preopercle articu.
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