A primitive actinopterygian braincase from the Tournaisian of Nova Scotia

The vertebrate fossil record of the earliest Carboniferous is notoriously poorly sampled, obscuring a critical interval in vertebrate evolution and diversity. Recent studies of diversity across the Devonian–Carboniferous boundary have proposed a vertebrate mass extinction at the end-Devonian, and recent phylogenies suggest that the origin of the actinopterygian crown may have occurred in the earliest Carboniferous, as part of a broader recovery fauna. However, the data necessary to test this are limited. Here, we describe a partial actinopterygian skull, including diagnostic elements of the posterior braincase, from the Tournaisian Horton Bluff Formation of Blue Beach, Nova Scotia. The braincase surprisingly shows a confluence of characters common in Devonian taxa but absent in Mississippian forms, such as an open spiracular groove; lateral dorsal aortae that pass through open broadly separated, parallel grooves in the ventral otoccipital region, posterior to the articulation of the first infrapharyngobranchial and an intertemporal–supratemporal complex. Phylogenetic analysis places it deep within the actinopterygian stem, among Devonian moythomasiids and mimiids, suggesting more phylogenetically inclusive survivorship of stem group actinopterygians across the end-Devonian mass extinction. With a high lineage survivorship in tetrapods and lungfish across the Devonian–Carboniferous boundary and high vertebrate diversity at Tournaisian localities, this hints at a more gradual turnover between Devonian and Carboniferous vertebrate faunas.