''Crenilepis'' is an extinct genus of prehistoric marine

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 lived in the seas of present-day Europe during the

Middle Triassic In the geologic timescale, the Middle Triassic is the second of three epoch (geology), epochs of the Triassic period (geology), period or the middle of three series (stratigraphy), series in which the Triassic system (stratigraphy), system is di ...

epoch. It contains a single species, ''C. sandbergi'' from the

Anisian In the geologic timescale, the Anisian is the lower stage (stratigraphy), stage or earliest geologic age, age of the Middle Triassic series (stratigraphy), series or geologic epoch, epoch and lasted from million years ago until million years ag ...

of Germany, Spain, and the

Besano Formation The Besano Formation is a geological formation in the southern Alps of northwestern Italy and southern Switzerland. This formation, a thin but fossiliferous succession of Dolomite (rock), dolomite and Shale, black shale, is famous for its preserva ...

of the Swiss-Italian border.

Taxonomy

''Crenilepis'' was named by German paleontologist

Wilhelm Dames Wilhelm Barnim Dames (9 June 1843, in Stolp – 22 December 1898, in Berlin) was a German paleontologist of the Berlin University, who described the first complete specimen of the early bird ''Archaeopteryx'' in 1894. This specimen is currently in ...

in 1888 for a fragment of scales (SNSB-BSPG 2008 LXI 5) from the Middle Triassic (Ladinian) Lower Keuper of

Würzburg Würzburg (; Main-Franconian: ) is, after Nuremberg and Fürth, the Franconia#Towns and cities, third-largest city in Franconia located in the north of Bavaria. Würzburg is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Lower Franconia. It sp ...

, Bavaria, southern Germany. The genus name was misspelt as ''"Crenolepis"'' by Carus (1888),> and some authors (Romer 1966; Gardiner 1967; Carroll 1988; Sepkoski 2002) erroneously believed that Carus's misspelling was a replacement name for ''Crenilepis''. However, Moser (2013) pointed out "''Crenolepis''" is a misspelling of ''Crenilepis'' because Carus (1888) cited Dames' 1888 work and just noted the genus as new.Moser, Markus (2013)
Transfer of type specimens of fossil fishes to the Bavarian State Collection for Palaeontology and Geology with some notes on their history of research
In: Zitteliana, Vol. A 53: S. 169-177 Strand (1929) claimed that Dames' genus was a junior homonym of "''Crenilepis'' Reis, Sitz.-Ber. Akad. Wiss. München 1887, fasc. 1. p. 40, t. 5, f. 3 (1887)" and coined ''Crenilepoides'' as a replacement name.Strand E. 1929. Zoological and palaeontological nomenclatorical notes. Latvijas Ūniversitātes Raksti (Acta Universitatis Latviensis) 20, 3–29. However, Moser (2013) showed that this citation was in error, as no known works by Otto Maria Reis dealt with ''Crenilepis'' and the Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1887 contained no works by Reis at all, rendering ''Crenilepis'' technically valid and ''Crenilepoides'' an unnecessary replacement name. The type species of ''Crenilepis'' is ''C. sandbergeri'', Sun et al. (2008) considered the type specimen of ''C. sandbergeri'' lost and also undiagnostic,Z. Y. Sun, A. Tintori, C. Lombardo, D. Y. Jiang, W. C. Hao, Y. L. Sun, F. X. Wu and M. Rusconi. 2008
A New Species of the Genus Colobodus Agassiz, 1844 (Osteichthyes, Actinopterygii) From the Pelsonian (Anisian, Middle Triassic) of Guizhou, South China
Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia 144(3):363-376 but Moser (2013) noted that the holotype is now in the collections of the Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und Geologie in Munich. Other species have also been assigned to this genus, including ''C. divaricatus'' Mutter, 2002 and ''C. bassanii'' de Alessandri, 1910, but this is disputed.

References

Prehistoric neopterygii Prehistoric ray-finned fish genera Middle Triassic fish Triassic bony fish Triassic fish of Europe Anisian genera Fossils of Spain Fossils of Germany Fossils of Switzerland Fossils of Italy Fossil taxa described in 1888 {{triassic-fish-stub

Taxonomy

See also

References