Re-discovery of bramble shark dermal denticles in the marine Pliocene of Italy

Members of the extant shark family Echinorhinidae (i.e., the bramble shark, Echinorhinus brucus (Bonnaterre, 1788) and the prickly shark, Echinorhinus cookei Pietschmann, 1928)) are characterised by thorn-like dermal denticles that can grow very large (up to about 15 mm in diame-ter in E. brucus). Despite their conspicuous size, such elements are overly rare as fossils. Here, we report on bramble shark-like dermal denticles from Upper Pliocene (Piacenzian) strata cropping out at Castelnuovo Berardenga Scalo and Asciano Senese, two localities of the Siena-Radicofani Basin (Tuscany, central Italy). These remains are assigned to the fossil taxon Echinorhinus richiardii (Law-ley, 1876), a species inquirenda as a possible junior synonym of E. brucus. Other isolated echinorh-inid dermal denticles from the Pliocene of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands (Mediterranean Spain) are likely to represent the same species as the Tuscan finds.