Tharsis (fish)

Tharsis Temporal range: Tithonian PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Specimen of Tharsis dubius
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Infraclass:	Teleostei
Order:	† Ascalaboidiformes
Family:	† Ascalaboidae
Genus:	†Tharsis Giebel, 1848 [1]
Type species
†Leptolepis dubius Blainville, 1818
Other species
†T. elleri Arratia, Schultze and Tischlinger, 2019

Tharsis is an extinct genus of marine ray-finned fish known from the Late Jurassic Solnhofen Limestone of Germany. The genus contains two species, T. dubius and T. elleri. ^[2]

In 2025, Ebert and Kölbl-Ebert reported the discovery of specimens of Tharsis found with belemnites lodged in their mouth and gill apparatus, and interpreted them as sucking remnants of belemnite soft tissue of algal or bacterial overgrowth after accidentally sucking belemnites into their mouth, which likely resulted in suffocation. ^[3]

References

1. Giebel, C. G.: Fauna der Vorwelt, mit steter Berücksichtigung der lebenden Tiere, Erster Band: Wirbelthiere, Dritte Abtheilung: Fische, Brockhaus, Leipzig, 1–467, 1848.
2. Arratia, Gloria; Schultze, Hans-Peter; Tischlinger, Helmut (2019-01-07). "On a remarkable new species of Tharsis, a Late Jurassic teleostean fish from southern Germany: its morphology and phylogenetic relationships". Fossil Record. 22 (1): 1–23. Bibcode:2019FossR..22....1A. doi: 10.5194/fr-22-1-2019 . ISSN   2193-0066.
3. Ebert, M.; Kölbl-Ebert, M. (2025). "Jurassic fish choking on floating belemnites". Scientific Reports. 15 (1). 16095. Bibcode:2025NatSR..1516095E. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-00163-7 . PMC   12062261 . PMID   40341734.