RESEARCH PAPER Fish otoliths from the Konkian (Miocene, early Serravallian) of Mangyshlak (Kazakhstan): testimony to an early endemic evolution in the Eastern Paratethys Andriy Bratishko 1 • Werner Schwarzhans 2,3 • Bettina Reichenbacher 4 • Yuliia Vernyhorova 5 • Stjepan C ´ oric ´ 6 Received: 22 December 2014 / Accepted: 8 July 2015 Ó Pala ¨ontologische Gesellschaft 2015 Abstract Reconstruction of fossil teleost faunas can provide important information on palaeoenvironments, palaeogeography and evolution, and otoliths are particu- larly useful for that purpose. Here we present an otolith- based fish fauna from the middle Miocene of the Eastern Paratethys, i.e. the Karagaily section of the Mangyshlak Peninsula in Western Kazakhstan, and report on the accompanying nannoplankton, foraminifera, molluscs and ostracods. A total of 30 teleost species are described and figured, including ten new species: Alosa paulicrenata n.sp., Morone? bannikovi n.sp., Centracanthus pobedinae n.sp., Genyonemus? karagiensis n.sp., Trewasciaena suzini n.sp., Parablennius prokofievi n.sp., Aphia djafarovae n.sp., Neogobius udovichenkoi n.sp., Ponticola zosimovichi n.sp., Pomatoschistus bunyatovi n.sp. Nannoplankton and gastropods indicate a Konkian (late Badenian, early Ser- ravallian) age for this fish assemblage. The dominance of Gadidae and Gobiidae, together with the composition of the nannoplankton, indicates an inner-neritic to coastal environment with high productivity. The Konkian fish fauna of the Eastern Paratethys shows a high degree of autonomy relative to approximately contemporaneous fish faunas from the Central Paratethys and other European basins. This confirms that the Konkian was a time of lim- ited faunal exchange between the Central and Eastern Paratethys, while a marine connection may have persisted between the Central Paratethys and the northern Mediter- ranean. We conclude that the fish fauna reported here records an early endemic development in the Eastern Paratethys during the middle Miocene (Konkian). The disappearance of Bregmacerotidae and Gonostomatidae (Bonapartia) during the preceding stage of the Karaganian and the first appearance of Palimphemus minusculoides in the Konkian are important biostratigraphical markers. Keywords Otoliths Á Nannoplankton Á Eastern Paratethys Á Konkian Á Serravallian Á Biostratigraphy Á Palaeogeography & Andriy Bratishko andrejbratishko@mail.ru Werner Schwarzhans wwschwarz@aol.com Bettina Reichenbacher b.reichenbacher@lrz.uni-muenchen.de Yuliia Vernyhorova july.vern@gmail.com Stjepan C ´ oric ´ stjepan.coric@geologie.ac.at 1 Faculty of Natural Sciences, Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University, Gogolya Sqr. 1, Starobelsk, Luhansk Region 92703, Ukraine 2 Ahrensburger Weg 103, 22359 Hamburg, Germany 3 Natural History Museum of Denmark, Zoological Museum, Universitetsparken 15, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark 4 Department for Earth and Environmental Sciences, Palaeontology and Geobiology, Ludwig-Maximilians- Universita ¨t Mu ¨nchen, Richard-Wagner-Str. 10, 80333 Munich, Germany 5 Department of Paleontology and Stratigraphy of Cenozoic Deposits, Institute of Geological Sciences, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, O. Gonchara Str. 55-b, Kiev 01601, Ukraine 6 Geological Survey of Austria, Neulinggasse 38, 1030 Vienna, Austria 123 Pala ¨ontol Z DOI 10.1007/s12542-015-0274-4