Gasteroclupea

Gasteroclupea
Temporal range: Campanian–Danian
Fossil specimen
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: †Ellimmichthyiformes
Suborder: †Sorbinichthyoidei
Family: †Gasteroclupeidae
Signeux, 1964
Genus: †Gasteroclupea
Signeux, 1964
Species:
†G. branisai
Binomial name
†Gasteroclupea branisai
Signeux, 1964

Gasteroclupea is a genus of prehistoric ellimmichthyiform fish that is distantly related to modern anchovies and herrings. It contains one species, G. branisai.[1] It inhabited freshwater or estuarine habitats across South America during the Campanian and Maastrichtian stages of the Late Cretaceous period, and it briefly survived beyond the K-Pg boundary into the Danian stage of the Paleocene, making it among the few genera from its order to survive into the Cenozoic.[2] Fossils of the genus have been found in the Yacoraite Formation of Argentina, the Chaunaca Formation, Santa Lucía Formation, and El Molino Formation of Bolivia, and the Navay Formation in Venezuela.[3]

Its taxonomic identity was long uncertain, often being placed as a clupeid or an indeterminate clupeomorph, but more recent studies have placed it with the Ellimmichthyiformes. Its closest relative has been found to be Sorbinichthys, another unusual ellimmichthyiform from marine deposits in Lebanon,[3][4][5] though some studies have been inconclusive about this.[2]

It is notable for its extremely deep abdominal profile (hence the genus name Gasteroclupea, translating to "stomach herring"), which shows heavy convergent evolution with the distantly related herring Pristigaster and especially with the unrelated freshwater hatchetfish (Gasterpelecidae), both of which are also known from South America. As with modern freshwater hatchetfish, its upturned mouth may have been an adaptation to a lifestyle of feeding on fallen insects on the water's surface.[3]

References

  1. ^ "PBDB". paleobiodb.org. Retrieved 2024-01-25.
  2. ^ a b Chen, Gengjiao; Chang, Mee-mann; Wu, Feixiang; Liao, Xiaowen (2021-06-01). "Guiclupea superstes, gen. et sp. nov., the youngest ellimmichthyiform (clupeomorph) fish to date from the Oligocene of South China". PeerJ. 9: e11418. doi:10.7717/peerj.11418. ISSN 2167-8359. PMC 8176909. PMID 34131517.
  3. ^ a b c Marramà, Giuseppe; Carnevale, Giorgio (2017-10-03). "The relationships of Gasteroclupea branisai Signeux, 1964, a freshwater double-armored herring (Clupeomorpha, Ellimmichthyiformes) from the Late Cretaceous-Paleocene of South America". Historical Biology. 29 (7): 904–917. Bibcode:2017HBio...29..904M. doi:10.1080/08912963.2016.1262855. ISSN 0891-2963. S2CID 88892891.
  4. ^ Boukhalfa, Kamel; Wu, Feixiang; Ben Ali, Walid; Fang, Gengyu (2018-09-03). "A new paraclupeid fish (Clupeomorpha: Ellimmichthyiformes) from the Lower Cretaceous Sidi Aich Formation of southern Tunisia: phylogenetic and paleobiogeographic implications". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 38 (5): e1529675. Bibcode:2018JVPal..38E9675B. doi:10.1080/02724634.2018.1529675. ISSN 0272-4634. S2CID 91457179.
  5. ^ Marramà, Giuseppe; Bannikov, Alexandre F.; Kriwet, Jürgen; Carnevale, Giorgio (2019). Cavin, Lionel (ed.). "An Eocene paraclupeid fish (Teleostei, Ellimmichthyiformes) from Bolca, Italy: the youngest marine record of double-armoured herrings". Papers in Palaeontology. 5 (1): 83–98. Bibcode:2019PPal....5...83M. doi:10.1002/spp2.1230. ISSN 2056-2799. PMC 6392134. PMID 30854219.
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