La crise messinienne et ses effets sur l'ichthyofaune néogène de la Méditerranée : le témoignage des squelettes en connexion de poissons téléostéens

A comparative study of the marine fish-fauna from the Tortonian, the pre-evaporitic Messinian and the Piacenzian which are fossilized as articulated skeletons is used to estimate the effects of the Messinian crisis on the fish-fauna of the Mediterranean basin. The occurrence, both in the preevaporitic Messinian and in the Piacenzian, or at least in the Piacenzian alone, of taxa having indo-pacific relationships throws a doubt on any interpretation of the evolution of the neogene fish-fauna of the Mediterranean based on the two following complementary postulates: 1) the interruption during the middle Miocene of faunal exchanges between the Mediterranean and the Eastern part of the Tethys; and 2) the complete dessiccation of the Mediterranean during the Messinian.