| Aluvarus Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist's reconstruction of an adult as a louvar-like fish | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Clade: | Percomorpha |
| Genus: | † Aluvarus Bannikov & Tyler, 1995 |
| Species: | †A. praeimperialis |
| Binomial name | |
| †Aluvarus praeimperialis (Arambourg, 1967) | |
| Synonyms | |
| |
Aluvarus praeimperialis is an extinct ray-finned fish, known from two headless larval fossil specimens found in the Pabdeh Formation, a Late Eocene stratum from the Priabonian epoch, of what is now Iran. [1] [2] [3] A. praeimperialis was originally thought to be a luvar, described as "Luvarus praeimperialis", as it was thought to be a predecessor to the modern luvar. A later reexamination of the specimens showed that they were too incomplete to demonstrate such a conclusion and had no clear exclusive shared traits with luvar, and were renamed "Aluvarus", meaning "not luvar" or "different than luvar". [4] However, some authorities still retain it as a luvar. [1]
The Pabdeh Formation was originally dated to the early Oligocene, but more recent analysis indicates it to be from the mid-late Eocene, most likely the Priabonian. It inhabited an open ocean habitat with a significant deepwater component to the fauna. [2] [3]
