A high latitude Gondwanan species of the Late Devonian tristichopterid Hyneria (Osteichthyes : Sarcopterygii)

Uppsala universitet, Evolution och utvecklingsbiologi Rhodes Univ, Albany Museum, Makhanda, South Africa.;Rhodes Univ, Geol Dept, Makhanda, South Africa. 2023

We describe the largest bony fish in the Late Devonian (late Famennian) fossil assemblage from Waterloo Farm near Makhanda/Grahamstown, South Africa. It is a giant member of the extinct clade Tristichopteridae (Sarcopterygii: Tetrapodomorpha) and most closely resembles Hyneria lindae from the late Famennian Catskill Formation of Pennsylvania, USA. Notwithstanding the overall similarity, it can be distinguished from H. lindae on a number of morphological points and is accordingly described as a new species, H. udlezinye sp. nov. The preserved material comprises most of the dermal skull, lower jaw, gill cover and shoulder girdle. The cranial endoskeleton appears to have been unossified and is not preserved, apart from a fragment of the hyoid arch adhering to a subopercular, but the postcranial endoskeleton is represented by an ulnare, some semi-articulated neural spines, and the basal plate of a median fin. The discovery of H. udlezinye shows that Hyneria is a cosmopolitan genus extending into the high latitudes of Gondwana, not a Euramerican endemic. It supports the contention that the derived clade of giant tristichopterids, which alongside Hyneria includes such genera as Eusthenodon, Edenopteron and Mandageria, originated in Gondwana.

Evolutionary Biology; Evolutionsbiologi; Article in journal; info:eu-repo/semantics/article; text

10.1371.journal.pone.0281333

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UPE oai:DiVA.org:uu-500587
0000-0001-9054-2900
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0281333
PMID 36812170
ISI:000942161600060
1399989838

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