Studies of the Iharkút fish-fauna

The studies of the Iharkút fish-fauna turned to be an unexpectedly informative segment of our researches. However, fish fossils have been unearthed since the first excavations at the Iharkút fossil site, their number and variability made their closer studies possible only for now. The two dominant fish taxa of the Iharkút vertebrate assemblage are lepisosteid and pycnodontid fishes, both groups are represented by thousands of fossils. The fish-fauna of Iharkút is investigated by Márton Szabó, Péter Gulyás and Attila Ősi.
The Iharkút gar-material includes thousands of remains: the ganoid scales, the plicidentine teeth, the opisthocoelous vertebrae, the various skull-elements and the supracleithrum represent anatomically important parts of the body of the Iharkút gars. This makes the Iharkút material important in the European gar record. On the other hand, not all gar fossils helped us to study the taxonomical belonging of these fishes, but the scales, the teeth and the supracleithrum. Based on the features of these elements, we refer the material to the genus Atractosteus. Additionally, Martin Segesdi have found ganoid gar scales in some of the Iharkút coprolites. These finds could refer that these fishes have been preys for other local taxa.
The Iharkút Pycnodontiform-material includes lower jaws, vomers, hundreds of isolated teeth, a premaxilla or predentale, pharyngeal teeth and scales. These fossils are similar to those of the genus Coelodus. Hopefully more Iharkút pycnodontid fossils will be unearthed in the future, which will let us identify these pycnodontids on a closer level.
Other fish fossils (teeth, pharyngeal teeth, scales and amphicoelous vertebrae) are also known from the Late Cretaceous Csehbánya Formation, however, this material is fragmentary and poorly preserved. They are usually not identifiable closer than family or order rank, yet they represent an indeterminate Vidalamiinae fishes, an indeterminate non-vidalamiin Amiidae fishes, indeterminate Elopiformes fishes, two indeterminate Ellimmichthyiformes fishes, a possible Salmoniformes fish, and further indeterminate actinopterygian taxa.