Journal
ZOOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY
Volume 191, Issue 2, Pages 347-374Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlaa044
Keywords
North America; convergence; skull; vertebrate palaeontology; species redescription; Carboniferous; fish; palaeoecology; Palaeozoic; taxonomy
Categories
Funding
- University of Pennsylvania
- Greg and Susan Walker Endowment for Student Research in Earth & Environmental Science
- Paleontological Society Student Ambassador Award
- University of Pennsylvania Grant for Faculty Mentoring Undergraduate Research
- NSF CAREER [1846777]
- Directorate For Geosciences
- Division Of Earth Sciences [1846777] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The Carboniferous period saw the appearance of novel but now common ecomorphologies in various lineages of fishes, suggesting a convergence in adaptations to changing marine and freshwater ecosystems and environments. This convergence on bottom-feeding lifestyles may have been a result of the plasticity of early actinopterygians and chondrichthyans in response to environmental shifts during the Carboniferous.
The Carboniferous radiation of fishes was marked by the convergent appearance of then-novel but now common ecomorphologies resulting from changes in the relative proportions of traits, including elongation of the front of the skull (rostrum). The earliest ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii) with elongate rostra are poorly known, obscuring the earliest appearances of a now widespread feature in actinopterygians. We redescribe Tanyrhinichthys mcallisteri, a long-rostrumed actinopterygian from the Upper Pennsylvanian (Missourian) of the Kinney Brick Quarry, New Mexico. Tanyrhinichthys has a lengthened rostrum bearing a sensory canal, ventrally inserted paired fins, posteriorly placed median fins unequal in size and shape, and a heterocercal caudal fin. Tanyrhinichthys shares these features with sturgeons, but lacks chondrostean synapomorphies, indicating convergence on a bottom-feeding lifestyle. Elongate rostra evolved independently in two lineages of bottom-dwelling, freshwater actinopterygians in the Late Pennsylvanian of Euramerica, as well as in at least one North American chondrichthyan (Bandringa rayi). The near-simultaneous appearance of novel ecomorphologies among multiple, distantly related lineages of actinopterygians and chondrichthyans was common during the Carboniferous radiation of fishes. This may reflect global shifts in marine and freshwater ecosystems and environments during the Carboniferous favouring such ecomorphologies, or it may have been contingent on the plasticity of early actinopterygians and chondrichthyans.Y
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