Il Cretaceo Marino

The majority of Cretaceous vertebrates found in the Italian territory is represented by fishes (condrichthyes and osteichthyes). Remains come from a lot of regions of the country, from Friuli-Venezia Giulia to Lombardy, from Emilia Romagna to Sicily. According to the ancient Italian paleogeographic position and paleoenvironmental context (shallow water), tropical forms are the most common among fishes, but also pelagic associations are found, mainly in the Upper Cretaceous. Brackish-water ichthyofaunas are also possibly present. Chondrichthyes are usual components of teh pelagic fish fauna. Alepisauriforms, elopiforms and clupeomorphs are often the most common and differentiated among the osteichthyans; Picnodonts are frequent in shallow carbonate platform environments. Other primitive neopterygians (Semionotiformes, Macrosemiiformes) are present mainly in the Lower Cretaceous. The derived spiny teleosts, the acanthomorphs, appear in the Late Cretaceous but are the minor component of the associations. The bony fishes assemblages are intermediate between the more archaic Late Jurassic (well represented by the Solnhofen-Eichstadt assemblages) and the already modern Eocene fauna from Bolca (Verona, Italy), dominated by Percomorpha. Reptiles are rare, but rather diversified and interesting. All aquatic Cretaceous group are known (mosasaurs, other marine squamates, plesiosaurians, ichthyosaurs, crocodilomorphs and chelonians), though often by fragmentary remains. Amphibians and terrestrial reptiles (sphenodonts and squamates) are reported in the Lower Albian, and dinosaur evidences are found both in Lower and Upper Cretaceous.