Fish Otoliths from the Cabarruyan Piacenzian-Gelasian fauna found in the Philippines.

We studied fish otoliths from twelve sediment samples of a well-preserved late Pliocene to early Pleistocene fauna originally from the northwest Philippines that were originally deposited in relatively deepwater marine environment. The fish fauna is systematically described, its paleoenvironmental character is explored, and its diversity is analyzed. Four unknown species have been encountered: Parascombrops schwarzhansi n. sp., Maurolicus sp., Pteropsaron sp., and Priolepis sp., of which one is described as new species and three were left in open nomenclature as their local recent counterparts are not well known yet. In addition, a variant Benthosema, Benthosema aff. fibulatum, is described. Overall, fifty-three taxa of fish otoliths were found, of which eighteen were identified at the species level and an additional twenty-seven at the genus level. Most extant species nowadays occur around the Philippines in relatively deep water (about 200 m depth), which is congruent with earlier studies on mollusks and echinoderms from the same deposits. This is the first study on a fossil fish otolith assemblage from the Philippines. Its diversity is very high and analysis by rarefaction curves suggests that additional sampling would add more fish species to the presented fauna list.

Acteonidae, Bullinidae and Ringiculidae (Gastropoda: Heterobranchia) from the Plio-Pleistocene of the Philippines.

Twenty-three species of Acteonidae, Bullinidae and Ringiculidae are documented from the so-called "Cabarruyan" fauna from the Plio-Pleistocene of Pangasinan, the Philippines. There are eleven species of Acteonidae, one species of Bullinidae and eleven species of Ringiculidae. Seven species are described here as new, these are: Bathyacteon valdesi nov. spec., Bullina virgoides nov. spec., Ringicula bella nov. spec., R. circumscripta nov. spec., R. caelestis nov. spec., R. opima nov. spec. and Microglyphis angulata nov. spec.. The presence of Acteonidae and Bullinidae indicates that polychaete worms were also present.

Revision of Scissurellidae , Anatomidae and Fissurellidae (G astropoda: V etigastropoda) from the Plio-Pleistocene of the Philippines.

The taxonomy, paleo-ecology and biogeography of the highly diverse "Cabarruyan" fauna are explored further. Eight species of three vetigastropod families are discussed here, one of which is described as new: Zeidora geigeri nov. spec. The other seven species were previously described from Recent material and three of these are also known from other fossil deposits. Most of the species still occur around the Philippines today.