Accumulations of Fossils of the Whale Barnacle Coronula bifida Bronn, 1831 (Thoracica: Coronulidae) Provides Evidence of a Late Pliocene Cetacean Migration Route through the Straits of Taiwan

John Stewart Buckeridge; Benny K K Chan; Shih-Wei Lee

doi:10.6620/ZS.2018.57-54

Accumulations of Fossils of the Whale Barnacle Coronula bifida Bronn, 1831 (Thoracica: Coronulidae) Provides Evidence of a Late Pliocene Cetacean Migration Route through the Straits of Taiwan

Zool Stud. 2018 Dec 3:57:e54. doi: 10.6620/ZS.2018.57-54. eCollection 2018.

Authors

John Stewart Buckeridge¹, Benny K K Chan², Shih-Wei Lee³

Affiliations

¹ Marine & Geological Systems Group, RMIT, Australia. E-mail: john.buckeridge@rmit.edu.au.
² Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica, Taipei 11529, Taiwan. E-mail: chankk@gate.sinica.edu.tw.
³ National Museum of Marine Science & Technology, Keelung 202, Taiwan.

Abstract

John Stewart Buckeridge, Benny K.K. Chan, and Shih-Wei Lee (2018) This paper describes a remarkably prolific accumulation of the whale barnacle Coronula bifida Bronn, 1831 in sediments of late Pliocene to earliest Pleistocene age from central Taiwan. Extant Coronula is host-specific to baleen whales; as such, this accumulation of Coronula fossils represents a site where cetaceans congregated during the Plio-Pleistocene - perhaps for breeding. Although whale bones are found at the site, they are rare and fragmentary; the relatively robust shells of Coronula are thus a useful proxy for establishing ancient cetacean migration routes.

Keywords: Coronula bifida; Fossil; Plio-Pleistocene; Taiwan; Whale barnacles.