''Dictyopyge'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of prehistoric freshwater

ray-finned fish Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class of bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built fins made of webbings of sk ...

that inhabited eastern North America during the early part of the

Late Triassic The Late Triassic is the third and final epoch (geology), epoch of the Triassic geologic time scale, Period in the geologic time scale, spanning the time between annum, Ma and Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Middle Triassic Epoch a ...

. Two

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

are recognized, both from the early

Carnian The Carnian (less commonly, Karnian) is the lowermost stage (stratigraphy), stage of the Upper Triassic series (stratigraphy), Series (or earliest age (geology), age of the Late Triassic Epoch (reference date), Epoch). It lasted from 237 to 227.3 ...

-aged Doswell Formation in what is now

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

, United States:. * †''D. macrura'' ( Redfield, 1841) - Carnian of Virginia * †''D. meekeri'' Schafer & McDonald, 1978 - Carnian of Virginia Both species inhabited the rift lakes of the Newark Supergroup, which formed due to the tectonic changes that were starting to break up

Pangaea Pangaea or Pangea ( ) was a supercontinent that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. It assembled from the earlier continental units of Gondwana, Euramerica and Siberia during the Carboniferous period approximately 335 mi ...

. Several possibly unrelated species from the

Triassic The Triassic ( ; sometimes symbolized 🝈) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.5 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.4 Mya. The Triassic is t ...

of Europe are provisionally referred to ''Dictyopyge'' ("''D.''" ''rhenana'', "''D.''" ''socialis'', "''D.''" ''catoptera'', "''D.''" ''superstes''), while three species from the Middle Triassic of Australia previously referred to ''Dictyopyge'' have been tentatively reallocated to the genus '' Brookvalia''.

References

Prehistoric ray-finned fish genera Redfieldiiformes Triassic bony fish Late Triassic fish Triassic fish of North America Carnian genera Fossils of the United States Fossil taxa described in 1847 {{Paleo-rayfinned-fish-stub

See also

References