Salmonidae is a family of ray-finned fish that constitutes the only currently extant family in the order Salmoniformes, consisting of 11 extant genera and over 200 species collectively known as "salmonids" or "salmonoids". The family includes salmon, trout, char, graylings, freshwater whitefishes, taimens and lenoks, all coldwater mid-level predatory fish that inhabit the subarctic and cool temperate waters of the Northern Hemisphere. The Atlantic salmon, whose Latin name became that of its genus Salmo, is also the eponym of the family and order names.
Thymallus or graylings is a genus of freshwater salmonid ray-finned fish and the only genus within the subfamily Thymallinae. Although all Thymallus species can be generically called graylings, without specific qualification the term "grayling" typically refers to the type species Thymallus thymallus, the European grayling.
Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park is a provincial park in British Columbia, Canada. Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park covers 23 ha of the Bulkley River Valley, on the east side of Driftwood Creek, a tributary of the Bulkley River, 10 km northeast of the town of Smithers. The park is accessible from Driftwood Road from Provincial Highway 16. It was created in 1967 by the donation of the land by the late Gordon Harvey (1913–1976) to protect fossil beds on the east side of Driftwood Creek. The beds were discovered around the beginning of the 20th century. The park lands are part of the asserted traditional territory of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation.
The Horsefly River is a river in the Cariboo district of British Columbia, Canada. Originating near the Wells Gray Provincial Park, it flows into Quesnel Lake, the source of the Quesnel River which in turn is a major tributary of the Fraser River. The Horsefly River is the largest inflow for Quesnel Lake, draining 2750 km2 of the Interior Plateau. It is also a spawning ground for sockeye, chinook and coho salmon. Fossil insects, fish and plants have been collected from Eocene Epoch lake sediments exposed along the river banks.
Priscacara, is a genus of extinct temperate bass described from Early to Middle Eocene fossils. It is characterized by a sunfish-like body and its stout dorsal and anal spines. The genus is best known from the Green River Formation of Wyoming, Utah and Colorado. Mass deaths of Priscacara suggest it formed schools.
Umbridae is a family of fish in the order Esociformes, which contains pike, pickerel, and mudminnows. The single living genus, Umbra, occupies weed-choked freshwater habitats in eastern North America and eastern Europe. While the family traditionally contained the genera Umbra, Novumbra, and Dallia, recent genetic and paleontological research have recovered this grouping as paraphyletic, with Novumbra and Dallia being moved to the family Esocidae.
Libotonius is an extinct genus of prehistoric percopsiform in the monotypic family Libotoniidae which lived during the middle division of the Eocene epoch. The type species Libotonius blakeburnensis is named for Blakeburn, British Columbia, the type locality of the genus and species in the Allenby Formation. The second species, Libotonius pearsoni is known exclusively from the Klondike Mountain Formation in Republic, Washington.
Mioplosus is an extinct genus of percid fish that lived from the early to middle Eocene. Five species of the genus has been described, Mioplosus labracoides is found in the Green River Formation Lagerstätte. Mioplosus has numerous extant relatives in Northern Hemisphere fresh- and brackish water, as well as fossil relatives in Asia, Europe and New Zealand, and may be closely related to the modern-day pike-perches.
Amyzon is an extinct genus belonging to the sucker family Catostomidae first described in 1872 by E. D. Cope. There are six valid species in the genus. Amyzon are found in North American fossil sites dated from the Early Eocene in Montana and Washington USA, as well as the British Columbian sites at McAbee Fossil Beds, Driftwood Canyon, and the "Horsefly shale", as well as Early Oligocene sites in Nevada USA. One Middle Eocene species is known from the Xiawanpu Formation of China. The Ypresian species A. brevipinne of the Allenby Formation was redescribed in 2021 and moved to a separate monotypic genus Wilsonium.
Eutrichiurides is an extinct genus of prehistoric cutlass fish.
The Macropodidae are an extant family of marsupial with the distinction of the ability to move bipedally on the hind legs, sometimes by jumping, as well as quadrupedally. They are herbivores, but some fossil genera like Ekaltadeta are hypothesised to have been carnivores. The taxonomic affiliations within the family and with other groups of marsupials is still in flux.
Palaeoperenethis is an extinct monotypic genus of nursery web spider family Pisauridae, and at present, it contains the single species Palaeoperenethis thaleri. The genus is solely known from Early Eocene, Ypresian Okanagan Highlands deposits in the Cariboo region of British Columbia, Canada.
Pellonulinae is a subfamily of freshwater herrings belonging to the family Clupeidae. Extant species are found in Asia, Africa and Australia, and members of the family occurred in North America in the Eocene.
The Princeton Chert is a fossil locality in British Columbia, Canada, which comprises an anatomically preserved flora of Eocene Epoch age, with rich species abundance and diversity. It is located in exposures of the Allenby Formation on the east bank of the Similkameen River, 8.5 km (5.3 mi) south of the town of Princeton, British Columbia.
The McAbee Fossil Beds is a Heritage Site that protects an Eocene Epoch fossil locality east of Cache Creek, British Columbia, Canada, just north of and visible from Provincial Highway 97 / the Trans-Canada Highway. The McAbee Fossil Beds, comprising 548.23 hectares, were officially designated a Provincial Heritage Site under British Columbia's Heritage Conservation Act on July 19, 2012. The site is part of an old lake bed which was deposited about 52 million years ago and is internationally recognised for the diversity of plant, insect, and fish fossils found there. Similar fossil beds in Eocene lake sediments, also known for their well preserved plant, insect and fish fossils, are found at Driftwood Canyon Provincial Park near Smithers in northern British Columbia, on the Horsefly River near Quesnel in central British Columbia, and at Republic in Washington, United States. The Princeton Chert fossil beds in southern British Columbia are also Eocene, but primarily preserve an aquatic plant community. A 2016 review of the early Eocene fossil sites from the interior of British Columbia discusses the history of paleobotanical research at McAbee, the Princeton Chert, Driftwood Canyon, and related Eocene fossil sites such as at Republic.
The Allenby formation is a sedimentary rock formation in British Columbia which was deposited during the Ypresian stage of the Early Eocene. It consists of conglomerates, sandstones with interbedded shales and coal. The shales contain an abundance of insect, fish and plant fossils known from 1877 and onward, while the Princeton Chert was first indented in the 1950's and is known from anatomically preserved plants.
Silvacola is an extinct genus of mammals belonging to the family Erinaceidae, which also contains the modern hedgehogs and gymnures. It lived in North America during the Early Eocene, about 50 million years ago. It was just 5 to 6 centimetres long, roughly the length of an adult thumb. It is the smallest erinaceid ever found and comparable in size to some of today's shrews.
Amia? hesperia is an extinct species of bony fish in the bowfin family, Amiidae. The species is known from fossils found in the early Eocene deposits of northern Washington state in the United States and southeastern British Columbia. The species is one of eight fish species identified in the Eocene Okanagan Highlands paleofauna.
The paleofauna of the Eocene Okanagan Highlands consists of Early Eocene arthropods, vertebrates, plus rare nematodes and molluscs found in geological formations of the northwestern North American Eocene Okanagan Highlands. The highlands lake bed series' as a whole are considered one of the great Canadian Lagerstätten. The paleofauna represents that of a late Ypresian upland temperate ecosystem immediately after the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum, and before the increased cooling of the middle and late Eocene to Oligocene. The fossiliferous deposits of the region were noted as early as 1873, with small amounts of systematic work happening in the 1880-90s on British Columbian sites, and 1920-30s for Washington sites. Focus and more detailed descriptive work on the Okanagan Highlands site started in the last 1970's. Most of the highlands sites are preserved as compression-impression fossils in "shales", but also includes a rare permineralized biota and an amber biota.
The Paleobiota of the Klondike Mountain Formation comprises a diverse suite of Early Eocene plants and animals recovered from North Central Washington State. The formation outcrops in locations across the north western area of Ferry County, with major sites in Republic, north west of Curlew Lake, and on the Toroda Creek area. The formation is the southern most of the Eocene Okanagan Highlands, sharing much of the paleoflora and paleofauna with site across Central and southern British Columbia.
