Probable perciform fish scales from a miocene freshwater lake deposit, central Otago, New Zealand

Abstract

Two Miocene fossil scales, 20–15 million years old, are reported from Ban‐nockburn, near Cromwell in Central Otago. Their explicit identity cannot be determined, but they appear to be from a perciform, perhaps a percichthyid, family of basal perciform fishes widely present in southern cool‐temperate lands. Whatever their identity, the scales came from a fish species not formerly reported from New Zealand fresh waters and they therefore indicate former, unrecognised diversity in the fauna. © 2005 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.