CHONDRICHTHYAN AND REPTILIAN FOSSILS FROM THE UPPER CRETACEOUS PEEDEE FORMATION AT ELIZABETHTOWN, SOUTHEASTERN NORTH CAROLINA, AND COMPARISON TO NEW JERSEY FAUNAS

Fossil bones and teeth were obtained from rust-brown clayey sand of the deltaic Peedee Formation (upper Campanian - upper Maestrichtian), at the Elizabethtown Dump site, along the Cape Fear River at Elizabethtown (Bladen County). The vertebrate remains were identified and compared with correlative faunas from New Jersey (Ellisdale, Monmouth County, Marshalltown Formation, upper Campanian; and Sewell, Gloucester County, Navesink Formation, lower/middle Maestrichtian).

At Elizabethtown, isolated shark teeth are the most common vertebrate fossils. Species identified include Scapanorhynchus texanus (the most numerous), Anomotodon angustidens (*),Cretodus borodini, Cretolamna appendiculata, Odontaspis samhammeri (or macrorhiza), Squalicorax kaupi, and Synodontaspis holmdelensis. A few ray teeth are mixed in (Brachyrhizodus wichitaensis, Ptchyotrygon vermiculata). All but one (*) of these species also occur at Ellisdale or Sewell. Occasional circular shark vertebrae, ovoid ray vertebrae, spiral-striated shark coprolites, possible ray dermal denticles, and very fragmentary teleost remains were also recovered.

In addition to these Cretaceous species, rare teeth (one shark, Mitsukurina lineata; two rays, Aetobatus arcuatus, Hypopholodon sylvestris) at Elizabethtown were previously known only from Tertiary strata. These fossils may represent artificial mixing by construction equipment working the dump, or possibly a range extension earlier in time.

Much less abundant at Elizabethtown than fish fossils are reptile fragments. Most are broken shell and limb bones of the robust toxocheliid turtle Osteopygis emarginatus, a few the soft-shelled turtle Trionyx (or Aspideretes? ) sp. Several teeth belong to an indeterminate crocodilian and a small pliosaur (Trinacromerum sp.). A single tooth represents a hadrosaur (dinosaur) not further identifiable.

The dominance of marine or aquatic reptiles, along with the numerous fishes, supports previous workers' inference that the Peedee here was nearshore marine paleoenvironmentally.