''Carpathichthys'' ("

Carpathian The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe and Southeast Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at ...

fish") is an extinct genus of prehistoric

slickhead Slickheads, also known as nakedheads or smoothheads, are deep water fishes that belong to the family Alepocephalidae. They are most commonly found in the bathypelagic layer, which is approximately 3000m below the surface. They get their name from ...

fish from the

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch (geology), epoch of the Paleogene Geologic time scale, Period that extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that defin ...

. It contains a single species, ''C. polonicus'', from the Menilite Formation in the Carpathian Flysch Belt of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, in what was formerly the

Paratethys Sea The Paratethys sea, Paratethys ocean, Paratethys realm or just Paratethys (meaning "beside Tethys"), was a large shallow inland sea that covered much of mainland Europe and parts of western Asia during the middle to late Cenozoic, from the lat ...

. It is one of the very few known fossil slickheads, a group of

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

that are assumed to have ancient origins, but have almost no presence in the geological record, likely due to their preference for deep-water habitats. The only other known fossil slickhead is an indeterminate member of ''

Bathyprion ''Bathyprion'', is a genus of deepwater Marine life, marine Actinopterygii, ray-finned fish belonging to the Family (biology), family Alepocephalidae, the slickheads. Its only extant species is ''Bathyprion danae'', the fangtooth smooth-head. Thi ...

'' from the same formation, indicating that it was likely deposited in an abyssal habitat. ''Carpathichthys'' appears to be closely related to the extant genus ''

Rouleina ''Rouleina'' is a genus of slickheads. The genus is named for the ichthyologist Louis Roule. Species There are currently 10 recognized species in this genus: * '' Rouleina attrita'' ( Vaillant, 1888) (Softskin smooth-head) * '' Rouleina danae' ...

''.

References

External links

Bony fish in the online Sepkoski Database

† 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 ...

Prehistoric ray-finned fish genera Oligocene fish of Europe Fossils of Poland Rupelian genera Fossil taxa described in 1979 {{Alepocephaliformes-stub

See also

References

External links