''Alepisaurus paronai'' is an extinct species of
lancetfish
Lancetfishes are large oceanic predatory ray-finned fishes in the genus ''Alepisaurus'' ("scaleless lizard") in the monogeneric family Alepisauridae.
Lancetfishes grow up to in length. Very little is known about their biology, though they are ...
known from a fossil skull found in Middle Miocene-aged strata in
Piedmont
Piedmont ( ; ; ) is one of the 20 regions of Italy, located in the northwest Italy, Northwest of the country. It borders the Liguria region to the south, the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions to the east, and the Aosta Valley region to the ...
, Italy. The skull is very similar in anatomy and dimensions to that of the extant
long-snouted lancetfish.
The specific name honors one Professor Carlo Fabrizio Parona, a friend and personal mentor of its describer, Geremia d'Erasmo.
See also
Other notable extinct Cenozoic aulopiforms include:
*''
Argillichthys
''Argillichthys'' is an extinct marine lizardfish known from the Lower Eocene. It contains a single species, ''A. toombsi'', from the Ypresian-aged London Clay Formation in England. It is known from a skull. It is thought to be a stem-member of ...
'', a synodontid
lizardfish
The Synodontidae or lizardfishes(or typical lizardfish to distinguish them from the Bathysauridae and Pseudotrichonotidae) are benthic (bottom-dwelling) marine and estuarine bony fishes that belong to the aulopiform fish order, a diverse grou ...
from the
Ypresian
In the geologic timescale the Ypresian is the oldest age (geology), age or lowest stage (stratigraphy), stratigraphic stage of the Eocene. It spans the time between , is preceded by the Thanetian Age (part of the Paleocene) and is followed by th ...
London Clay
The London Clay Formation is a Sediment#Shores and shallow seas, marine formation (geology), geological formation of Ypresian (early Eocene Epoch, c. 54-50 million years ago) age which outcrop, crops out in the southeast of England. The London C ...
*''
Polymerichthys'', a closely related alepisauroid from Middle
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
References
†
A dagger, obelisk, or obelus is a typographical mark that usually indicates a footnote if an asterisk has already been used. The symbol is also used to indicate death (of people) or extinction (of species or languages). It is one of the mo ...
Miocene fish of Europe
{{Alepisauriformes-stub