From the sandstones of the same age, Lower Carboniferous, in the Grampians of Western Victoria, some small but well-preserved spines belonging to the genus Physonemus have been found associated with a new variety of the well-known European Carboniferous brachiopod, Lingula squamiformis (var. borungensis).
Carbopermian Fishes.—
In the Carbopermian (Gympie Beds) of the Rockhampton District, Queensland, a tooth of a Cochliodont (“snail tooth”) occurs, which has been doubtfully referred to the genus Deltodus (? D. australis). The Cochliodontidae show dentition remarkably like that of the Cestracion or Port Jackson Shark. Another tooth having the same family relationship has been referred to Tomodus ? convexus, Agassiz; this is from the Carbopermian of the Port Stephen district of New South Wales. From the Newcastle Coal Measures in New South Wales a Palaeoniscus-like fish, Urosthenes australis has been described.
Carbopermian fish remains are rare in Western Australia. They comprise a wrinkled tooth of Edestus (E. davisii) from the Gascoyne River, belonging to a fish closely related to the Port Jackson shark; and a cochliodont, Poecilodus (P. jonesi, Ag.) from the Kimberley district.
Triassic Fishes.—
Fossil fishes are important and numerous in Australian Triassic beds, especially in New South Wales. At the base of the Hawkesbury or close of the Narrabeen series, the railway ballast quarry near Gosford has yielded an extensive and extremely interesting collection. Near the floor of the quarry there is a band of sandy shale and laminated sandstone 5 feet 9 inches in thickness, and this contains the following genera:—A dipnoan, Gosfordia; and the following ganoids or enamelled scale fishes—Myriolepis, Apateolepis, Dictyopyge, Belonorhynchus, Semionotus, Pristisomus (see antea, Fig. 18), Cleithrolepis ([Fig. 125]), Pholidophorus and ? Peltopleurus.
Upper Triassic Fishes.—
In the middle of the Wianamatta or Upper Trias Series at St. Peter’s, near Sydney, which contains a fauna described as slightly older in aspect than that of Gosford, having Carbopermian affinities, there occur in the hard shale or clay stone the genera Pleuracanthus (a Palaeozoic shark); Sagenodus (a dipnoan related to Ctenodus of the Victorian Carboniferous); and the following ganoids,—Palaeoniscus, Elonichthys, Myriolepis, Elpisopholis, Platysomus and Acentrophorus. From the soft shales were obtained Palaeoniscus, Semionotus, Cleithrolepis and Pholidophorus; an assemblage of genera somewhat comparable with the Gosford fauna.
