Leptolepides sprattiformis
| Leptolepides sprattiformis | ||||||||||||
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Leptolepides sprattiformis in the Jura limestone, found in Eichstätt |
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| Upper Jurassic ( Kimmeridgian to Tithonian ) | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Leptolepides sprattiformis | ||||||||||||
| ( de Blainville , 1818) |
Leptolepides sprattiformis ( Latin : "sprat-like tender scab") was a very common fish species in the European Jurassic Seaabout 150 million years ago. It wasvoted Fossil of the Year 2016by the Paleontological Society .
Leptolepides sprattiformis was only four to six centimeters long and is similar in size and shape to today's sprats ( sprattiformis = sprat-shaped, similar to). A larger related species was Tharsis dubius (formerly Leptolepides knorri ). Both species make up most of the fossilized fish in the Jura limestone .
Leptolepides belongs to the real bony fish (Teleostei), so it had a tightly ossified spine . However, it is still one of the more primitive forms that were only at the beginning of their ancestral development in the Jura. The body covering consisted of overlapping, delicate round scales (cycloid scales), which - in contrast to ganoid scales (melt scales ) - hardly served as a support for the body. The scale-covering enamel layer had almost completely broken down and only pure bone scales remained.
The small fish probably formed schools in order to have better protection from their predators. They were prey of the numerous predatory fish in the Jurassic Sea, which can be proven by the fossilized stomach contents of the fish found and by fossil spitting balls . Local mass accumulations of fish are also known as "Fischli-Flinz".
literature
- District of Eichstätt: Fossils from the Altmühlalb , Brönner & Daentler, Eichstätt 1984
- Arratia, G. (2010). The Clupeocephala re-visited: Analysis of characters and homologies. Revista de Biología Marina y Oceanografía, 45 (S1), 635-657.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Leptolepides sprattiformis (Blainville, 1818) - Fossil of the year 2016. ( Memento of the original from February 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Press release on palges.de from January 1st, 2016
Lectotype Parapuzosia seppenradensis (2008) | Holotype Juravenator starki (2009) | Arthropitys strain (2010) | Three shark skeletons united (2011) | Giraffatitan skeleton (2012) | Gweng Gomphotherium (2013) | Seirocrinus subangularis (2014) | Arthropleura armata (2015) | Leptolepides sprattiformis (2016) | Pycnodonte vesiculare (2017) | Lepidodendron (2018) | Encrinus liliiformis (2019)