Article: The Serbian Lake System: a stepping stone for freshwater molluscs in the middle Miocene

The first in‐depth revision of a lacustrine freshwater mollusc fauna of the Serbian Lake System (SLS) is carried out. We describe and discuss well‐preserved faunas from two localities in central and southern Serbia (Mađere and Medoševac), along with the reinvestigation of type material of several species described in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Our revision yields 14 species of gastropods, with the families Hydrobiidae (six species) and Planorbidae (four species) being most abundant, along with one species each of Neritidae, Melanopsidae, Bithyniidae and Bulinidae, as well as two dreissenid bivalve species. Three of the hydrobiid gastropods are new to science, Prososthenia milosevici sp. nov., Prososthenia? naissensis sp. nov., and Prososthenia rundici sp. nov., and so is the bivalve Trigonipraxis madjerensis sp. nov. The present study results in 12 lectotype designations, 10 new generic combinations, and 10 new junior synonyms. About four‐fifths (81.3%) of the species are endemic to the SLS, which is slightly higher than the overall SLS endemism (71.4%). The composition at the genus and family level overlaps strongly with the slightly older faunas of the Dinaride Lake System in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as that of the late Miocene Lake Pannon. Its stratigraphically intermediate position and geographical proximity suggest that the SLS was a stepping stone for many of the mollusc lineages, some of which are found only in those systems.

We are grateful to Katarina Krizmanić and Nives Borčić (CNHM) for providing photographs of type material. The careful reviews by Daniela Esu and an anonymous reviewer as well as by Sally Thomas (Palaeontological Association) are greatly appreciated. TAN was supported by an Alexander‐von‐Humboldt Scholarship and a DFG grant (project no. NE 2268/2‐1).