title: Ghost shrimps (Decapoda: Axiidea: Callianassidae) as producers of an Upper Miocene trace fossil association from sublittoral deposits of Lake Pannon (Vienna Basin, Slovakia).
abstract: Numerous trace fossils are described from the Late Miocene sediments of the Bzenec Formation exposed at the Gbely section (the Vienna Basin, Slovakia). During deposition of the sediments the area was part of the large, long-lived brackish to freshwater Lake Pannon. Most of the trace fossils are attributed herein toEgbellichnus jordidegibertiigen et ispec. nov. and are interpreted as burrows produced by decapod crustaceans, specifically by a ghost shrimp of the family Callianassidae. This interpretation is based on two independent lines of evidence: environmental requirements of large bioturbators and the burrow morphology itself. The new ichnotaxon is distinguished from other related ichnotaxa by a combination of typically inclined (roughly at an angle of 45°) cylindrical burrows, absence of lining, and tunnels making loops or bends at approximately right angles. The burrow systems at Gbely document the survival of ghost shrimp long after the closure of all seaways and the origin of Lake Pannon. As today, no ghost shrimp are known from long-lived brackish lakes.Egbellichnusfrom Gbely is the only, although indirect, record of ghost shrimp from a brackish lake environment reported so far.
authors.affiliation: Department of Geology and Paleontology, Natural History Museum Vienna, Burgring 7, A-1010 Vienna, Austria ; Department of Geology and Palaeontology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University, Mlynská dolina G1, SK-842 15 Bratislava, Slovakia.
authors.forename: Matúš
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hyžný
authors.affiliation: Geological Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, SK-840 05 Bratislava, Slovakia.
authors.forename: Vladimír
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Šimo
authors.affiliation: Geological Institute, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Dúbravská cesta 9, SK-840 05 Bratislava, Slovakia.
authors.forename: Dušan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Starek
keywords: Egbellichnus jordidegiberti igen et isp. nov; Lake Pannon; Upper Miocene; callianassid ghost shrimp; the Vienna Basin