Topic
Paralycoptera
About: Paralycoptera is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2 publications have been published within this topic receiving 19 citations.
Papers
TL;DR: The fossils from the Changma locality are exceptionally well preserved, and allow many details of the anatomy of the new fish to be described, including the presence of a postpelvic bone, which was previously only known to be present in the living Hiodon.
Abstract: Several specimens of a fossil fish recently collected from Cretaceous deposits near Changma, Gansu Province, China, are here described as a new genus and species of osteoglossomorph, Shuleichthys brachypteryx. This fish is a stem osteoglossomorph that cannot be included in either the Hiodontiformes or Osteoglossiformes without making either order polyphyletic. The fossils from the Changma locality are exceptionally well preserved, and allow many details of the anatomy of the new fish to be described, including the presence of a postpelvic bone, which was previously only known to be present in the living Hiodon. The relationships of the osteoglossomorph fishes are still not well resolved, and the addition of the new species to previous phylogenetic analyses causes even less resolution to be found. However, the new species appears to be more derived than Lycoptera and Paralycoptera, two other well-known stem osteoglossomorphs.
18 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that the proposed temporal range extension is genuine because it is based on recent high precision radiometric age data, but given the discrepancies with the biostratigraphic ages further investigation is needed to confirm this.
Abstract: We describe a Mesozoic fish Paralycoptera sp. (Teleostei: Osteoglossoidei), on the basis of a postcranial skeleton collected from the volcaniclastic mudstones of the Lai Chi Chong Formation of Hong Kong, China. The new finding—representing the city’s first Mesozoic fish—extends the geographical distribution of Paralycoptera from eastern mainland China into Hong Kong, demonstrating a wider distribution than previously appreciated for this genus. A radiometric age for the Lai Chi Chong Formation of 146.6 ± 0.2 Ma implies a temporal range expansion for Paralycoptera of approximately 40 million years back from the Early Cretaceous (~110 Ma). However, spores found in the Formation suggest an Early Cretaceous age that is consistent with the existing age assignment to Paralycoptera. We argue that the proposed temporal range extension is genuine because it is based on recent high precision radiometric age data, but given the discrepancies with the biostratigraphic ages further investigation is needed to confirm this. This study provides an important step towards revealing Hong Kong’s Mesozoic vertebrate fauna and understanding its relationship to well-studied mainland Chinese ones.
5 citations
Related Topics (5)
Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 1 |
| 2010 | 1 |