| Miguashaiidae Temporal range: Devonian | |
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| Miguashaia | |
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| Family: | †Miguashaiidae |
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Miguashaiidae is an extinct family of prehistoric coelacanth fishes which lived during the Devonian period. [1] [2]
Coelacanths are an ancient group of lobe-finned fish (Sarcopterygii) in the class Actinistia. As sarcopterygians, they are more closely related to lungfish and tetrapods than to ray-finned fish.
Prehistoric fish are early fish that are known only from fossil records. They are the earliest known vertebrates, and include the first and extinct fish that lived through the Cambrian to the Quaternary. The study of prehistoric fish is called paleoichthyology. A few living forms, such as the coelacanth are also referred to as prehistoric fish, or even living fossils, due to their current rarity and similarity to extinct forms. Fish which have become recently extinct are not usually referred to as prehistoric fish. They were very different from what we have today. They likely were larger and had tougher scales.
Macropoma is an extinct genus of coelacanth in the class Sarcopterygii. Fossils of Macropoma have been found in both England and Czech Republic, dating to the mid-Cretaceous (Albian-Turonian). Recorded fossils have bodies under two feet in length. A modern coelacanth measures five or more, but in other respects the two genera are remarkably similar, and share the same body plan with a three-lobed tail and stalked fins.
Rhabdoderma is an extinct genus of coelacanth fish in the class Sarcopterygii. It lived in the Carboniferous and Early Triassic (Induan), and its fossils have been found in Europe, Madagascar and North America. The type species was originally described as Coelacanthus elegans.
Miguashaia is a genus of prehistoric lobe-finned fish which lived during the Devonian period. Miguashaia is the most primitive coelacanth fish.
Mawsoniidae is an extinct family of prehistoric coelacanth fishes which lived during the Triassic to Cretaceous periods. Members of the family are distinguished from their sister group, the Latimeriidae by the presence of ossified ribs, a coarse rugose texture on the dermatocranium and cheek bones, the absence of the suboperculum and the spiracular, and reduction or loss of the descending process of the supratemporal. Mawsoniids are known from North America, Europe, South America, Africa, Madagascar and Asia. Unlike Latimeriidae, which are exclusively marine, Mawsoniidae were also native to freshwater and brackish environments. Mawsoniids represent among the youngest known coelacanths, with the youngest known remains of the freshwater genus Axelrodichthys from France and an indeterminate marine species from Morocco being from the final stage of the Cretaceous, the Maastrichtian, roughly equivalent in age to the youngest known fossils of latimeriids. Species of Mawsonia and Trachymetopon are known to have exceeded 5 metres in length, making them among the largest known bony fish to have ever existed.
Whiteia is an extinct genus of prehistoric coelacanth fish which lived during the Triassic period. It is named after Errol White.
Sinocoelacanthus is an extinct genus of prehistoric coelacanth that lived during the Early Triassic epoch.
Lochmocercus is an extinct genus of prehistoric coelacanth fishes which lived during the Carboniferous Period.
Lualabaea is an extinct genus of prehistoric coelacanth, belonging to the family Mawsoniidae, containing the single species L. lerichei. It has been found in Late Jurassic or Berriasian aged deposits in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Heptanema is an extinct genus of prehistoric coelacanth from the Middle Triassic (Ladinian) of northern Italy and southern Switzerland.
Hainbergia is an extinct genus of prehistoric sarcopterygian or lobe-finned fish.
Mylacanthus is an extinct genus of prehistoric coelacanth lobe-finned fish that lived during the Smithian age of the Early Triassic epoch in what is now Svalbard.
Moenkopia is an extinct genus of prehistoric sarcopterygians from the Coelacanthidae found in the Middle Triassic Moenkopi Formation of Arizona. The type, and only species, M. wellesi, was named in 1961 in honour of Samuel Paul Welles. It is only known from the holotype, UMCP 36193, a partial skull consisting only of the basisphenoid that was collected in 1939 or 1940 by Samuel Welles and briefly noted on by him in 1947, and other assorted specimens found before 2005 in the Radar Mesa by S. J. Nesbitt, W. G. Parker and R. B. Irmis.
Sassenia is an extinct genus of prehistoric coelacanth lobe-finned fish that lived during the Early Triassic epoch in what is now East Greenland and Svalbard.
Youngichthys is an extinct genus of prehistoric sarcopterygians or lobe-finned fish from the upper Permian (Changhsingian) comprising a single species, Youngichthys xinghuansis. The single specimen of the fish was discovered in Zhejiang Province, China in 1981.
Swenzia is an extinct genus of coelacanthid fish from the late Jurassic of France. It contains a single species, S. latimerae, which was originally described as Wenzia latimerae. Because the generic name Wenzia was already preoccupied by a snail, the generic name was amended to Swenzia. It is the fossil genus most closely related to the living coelacanth, Latimeria.
Scleracanthus is an extinct genus of prehistoric coelacanth lobe-finned fish. It lived during the Early Triassic epoch in what is now Spitsbergen, Svalbard.
Dialipina is an extinct genus of prehistoric, marine osteichthyan. It was initially thought to be an early, basal actinopterygian, but recent phylogenetic analyses suggest that it may instead be a stem-osteichthyan.
Holopterygius is an extinct genus of prehistoric eel-like coelacanth known from the Devonian (Givetian–Frasnian) of Germany. Despite its specialized morphology and superficial dissimilarity to the usual Paleozoic coelacanth body plan, it is one of the most basal actinistian fish.
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