The Lee Creek fauna is best known for its selachian specimens, but teleost material is even more diverse — forty-nine genera have been ascribed to it. As shark tooth pickings have become scarce, many collectors have broadened their collecting interest to include bony fish material. This 'change' motivated us to better treat these teleosts on the website.

We have by no means presented a full selection of bones and otoliths from the fauna, but hope to improve on the content over time. We have touched upon the more readily available material, and with the reader's help, some of the more esoteric items might become available. We still have specimens to be identified including unreported species. We are attempting to verify the identifications of all the included specimens using extant material as a guide. This is a painstaking process, and for now, we are following the identifications provided in the earlier publications. Personal comment & observations will be clearly expressed as such. In general, we follow Purdy et al (2001) for the bones/teeth and for the otoliths, we employed Fitch & Lavenberg (1983) and Müller (1999). Please refer to the reference section for comments on systematics.

Although we've included some vertebrae which can be readily identified, it was not our intention to put a name on the thousands of vertebrae that are collected each weekend. We'll leave that project to someone younger and with much more free time. And finally, we've included images of some of the bones yet to be identified — help is always wanted. As our collection of extant material increases (30+ species) we hope to add names to this material.

Defining Scarcity of Specimens:
This is particularly difficult to quantify. Significantly different conclusions would be drawn based on the collector's experience at the mine, such as:
  • Surface collecting during the 1980-90's,
  • Tailings collected during after 2000,
  • Unprocessed sediment processing, and
  • Reject pile processing.
    The conclusions expressed herein attempt to view the overall availability of specimens and extrapolate their potential abundance to collectors. They may be loosely interpreted to mean:
  • abundant - readily found in quantity
  • common - readily found
  • uncommon - can be found with time and effort
  • scarce - seldomly encountered.
  • rare - only a few known.

    • For your convience, the fish icon is linked to FishBase's family page for that particular family. The specimen images provide greater detail on a particular genus and its fossils.

     
     
    Acknowledgements
    As the reader might suspect, this was a big project and we didn't do it on our own. To address just the otoliths, some 2900 specimens were collected during the Spring 2004 season. A special thanks needs to go out to Ken Young, Howie Cohn, John Everette and (believe it or not) Curtis Ormond, Jr. for their Yorktown crawling efforts. Specimens were kindly loaned for this project by BJ Blake, Roberta Dann, Sharron Edwards, Kim Greene, Gordon Hubbell, Becky Hyne, Mike Larkin, Ellie Rouse and Judy Stiles. We also need to thank Vince Schneider of the NC State Museum for providing access to their fish collection and providing other guidance. Windsor Aguirre was kind enough to assist with Cynoscion material. Bill Counterman (Calvert Marine Museum) assisted by reviewing the content, helping with identifications and pointing out similarities with the Chesapeake fauna. Joseph W. Smith (NOAA) was kind enough to review the content from an extant perspective; his comments and corrections were much appreciated. And last but not least, the Capt. Stacy Fishing Fleet for providing recent material for our comparative studies.
    References
    A particular challenge with this page was determining the 'systematic baseline' to employ -- it was hard to find any consensus on these (mostly) extant fishes. Time makes this topic dynamic, therefore a dynamic baseline was required. FishBase seemed to be the logical default. It is not only constantly evolving, but it also provides a references that can be accessed by all. This also provides the authors the luxury of ducking systematic questions -- you don't like our assignments, well complain to FishBase, not us.
     
    As we developed these pages, we attempted to use online references for extant taxa. By doing so, we could use resources that would also be available to the readers. Of particular importance is Bigelow and Schroeder (1953) - Fishes of the Gulf of Maine, a revised (2002) version provided by the Gulf of Maine Aquarium. Although dated, this is a primary resource for North Atlantic fishes. Another useful resource is the Fish Identification Guide provided by Virginia Marine Resources Commission as a PDF download.
     
    Bigelow, H.B.. and Schroeder, W.C., 1953. Fishes of the Gulf of Maine. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Fishery Bulletin, 53 (74):1-577
    Fierstine, H.L., 2001. Analysis and New Records of Billfish (Teleostei: Perciformes: Istiophoridae) from The Yorktown Formation, Early Pliocene of Eastern North Carolina at Lee Creek Mine. In Clayton E. Ray and David J. Bohaska, editors, Geology and Paleontology of the Lee Creek Mine, North Carolina, III. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology, 90:71-202, 83 figures.
    Fitch, J.E. & Lavenberg, R.J., 1983. Fish Otoliths from Lee Creek Mine, Aurora, North Carolina (Yorktown Formation: Pliocene). In Clayton E. Ray, editor, Geology and Paleontology of the Lee Creek Mine, North Carolina, I. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology, 53:509-529, 4 figures.
    Froese, R. & Pauly, D. Editors. 2003. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org, version January 2004
    Müller, A., 1999. Ichthyofaunen aus dem atlantischen Tertiär der USA. Leipziger Geowissenschaftenb, 9/10:1-360, 17 plates.
    Nolf, D., 1985. Otolithi Piscum; In: Shultze, H-P (ed), Handbook of Paleoichthyology, 10. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Stuttgart and New York, 145 pages.
    Nolf, D. & Steurbaut, E., 1989 A. Evidence from Otoliths for Establishing Relationships Between Gadiforms and Other Groups. In: Papers on the Systematics of Gadiform Fishes Cohen, D.M., editor, Natl. His. Mus. LA Co., Science Series 32:37-45.
    Nolf, D. & Steurbaut, E., 1989 B. Importance and Restrictions of the Otolith-based Fossil Record of Gadiform and Ophidiiform Fishes. In: Papers on the Systematics of Gadiform Fishes Cohen, D.M., editor, Natl. His. Mus. LA Co., Science Series 32:47-58.
    Nolf, D. & Steurbaut, E., 1989 C. Evidence from Otoliths for Establishing Relationships within Gadiforms. In: Papers on the Systematics of Gadiform Fishes Cohen, D.M., editor, Natl. His. Mus. LA Co., Science Series 32:89-111.
    Purdy, R.W., Schneider, V.P., Applegate, S.P., McLellan, J.H., Meyer, R.L. & Slaughter, B.H., 2001. The Neogene Sharks, Rays, and Bony Fishes from Lee Creek Mine, Aurora, North Carolina. In Clayton E. Ray and David J. Bohaska, editors, Geology and Paleontology of the Lee Creek Mine, North Carolina, III. Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology, 90:71-202, 83 figures.
    Schwarzahns, W. 1993. A comparative morphological treatise of recent and fossil otoliths of the family Sciaenidae (Perciformes). Ed. Dr. F. pfiel, Piscum Catalogus, Otolithi Piscum. 1:1-245; München.
    Schwarzahns, W. 1999. A comparative morphological treatise of recent and fossil otoliths of the order Pleuronectiformes. Ed. Dr. F. pfiel, Piscum Catalogus, Otolithi Piscum. 2:1-391; München.
    Tyler, J.C., Purdy, R.W. and Oliver, K.H., 1992. A New Species of Sphoeroides Pufferfish (Teleostei: Tetraodontidae) with Extensive Hyperostosis from the Pliocene of North Carolina). Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 105(3):462-482, 8 figures.
    Weems, R.E., 1985. Miocene and Pliocene Molidae (Ranzania, Mola) from Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina (Pisces: Tetraodontiformes). Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 98(2):422-438.

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