Robertson, D Ross, Baldwin, Carole C., Bellwood, David, Pyle, Richard, Smith-Vaniz, William, Tornabene, Luke, and Van Tassell, James L. (2019) Aspiration or expiration: hypoxia and the interpretation of fish predation in the fossil record. Palaios, 34 (5). pp. 245-247.

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Abstract

[Extract] Accurate interpretation of fossils of one organism inside another is essential for understanding predator-prey relationships, food-web structure, and energy flows in ancient ecosystems. Fossils of a fish inside the mouth or stomach of another fish are thought to represent examples of normal predation in such ecosystems (Viohl 1990; Maisey 1994; McAllister 2003; Ebert et al. 2015). Further, so-called “aspiration” fossils of a relatively large fish partly inserted headfirst into the mouth of another fish (Fig. 1A) often are considered to be the result of ingestion of over-sized normal prey leading to the death of the predator (Grande 1984, 2013; Viohl 1990; McAllister 2003; Ebert et al. 2015), which is known to happen with modern predatory fishes (e.g., Viohl 1990). However, there are other plausible explanations for some such fish fossils.

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