Tselfatiiformes
| Tselfatiiformes | ||||||||||||
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Tselfatia formosa fossil in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris. |
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| upper Albium to late Campanium (Upper Cretaceous) | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Tselfatiiformes | ||||||||||||
| Nelson , 1994 |
The Tselfatiiformes (= Bananogmiiformes) are an extinct bony fish order from the sub-class of real bony fish (Teleostei). The group represents the most important radiation of marine real bony fish in the Cretaceous Period. Fossils of the Tselfatiiformes are known from Europe, North, Central and northern South America, the Middle East and North Africa.
The order appeared in the upper Albian on the coasts of Europe and North Africa and spread during the Cenomanian and Turonian on the Proto Atlantic to the coasts of northern South America, the Gulf of Mexico and in the Western Interior Seaway from. In the Coniacium and Santonium they were very common in North American coastal waters, but disappeared from Europe and North Africa. A few species still lived in the Campanium in the Gulf of Mexico, but the order died out before the end of this chronostratigraphic stage .
features
The genera and species of the Tselfatiiformes had a high-backed body. The dorsal fin took up most of the length of the back. The pectoral fins were high. Ventral fins could be present or absent; if present, they were supported by six or seven fin rays. The caudal fin was forked and had 18 main fin rays. The majority of the fin rays were unsegmented. The upper jaw was formed by the premaxillary and maxillary . The palate was also toothed.
Familys
The Tselfatiiformes include three families of 21 genera and 32 species.
- Eoplethodidae (a monotypic genus)
- Plethodidae (17 genera and four species)
- Protobramidae (three genera and 27 species)
Systematics
The Tselfatiiformes could not initially be assigned to a larger kinship group within the Teleostei. More recent cladistic studies on the basis of their osteological characteristics have now made it clear that they are primitive Clupeocephala and represent the plesiomorphic sister group of a clade from Otocephala ( Clupeomorpha and Ostariophysi ) and Euteleostei .
literature
- Joseph S. Nelson : Fishes of the World . John Wiley & Sons, 2006, ISBN 0-471-25031-7 .
- Louis Taverne & Mireille Gayet: Phylogenetical relationships and palaeozoogeography of the marine Cretaceous Tselfatiiformes (Teleostei, Clupeocephala). Cybium 2005, 29 (1) PDF
Web links
- The Paleobiology Database Tselfatiiformes