Cretatriacanthidae is an extinct family 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 ...

from the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the more recent of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''cre ...

. It contains two genera, both known from southern Europe. Placed in the suborder

Plectocretacicoidei Plectocretacicoidei is an extinct suborder of Actinopterygii belonging to the order Tetraodontiformes, which includes the triggerfishes, filefishes, pufferfishes and related groups. The fishes in this suborder were extant from the Late Cretaceou ...

alongside several other similar Cretaceous fish genera, they were long considered the earliest members of the extant order

Tetraodontiformes Tetraodontiformes (), also known as the Plectognathi, is an order of ray-finned fishes which includes the pufferfishes and related taxa. This order has been classified as a suborder of the order Perciformes, although recent studies have found ...

. However, a 2024 study found that many of the alleged shared traits were also found among other acanthomorph lineages, and that other traits present within the

are not known from modern Tetraodontiformes. For this reason, it considered them instead as basal members of an expanded

Acanthuriformes Acanthuriformes is a large, diverse order of mostly marine ray-finned fishes, part of the Percomorpha clade. In the past, members of this clade were placed in the suborders Acanthuroidea and Percoidea of the order Perciformes, but this treatment ...

(containing Tetraodontiformes and

Lophiiformes The anglerfish are ray-finned fish in the order Lophiiformes (). Both the order's common and scientific name comes from the characteristic mode of predation, in which a modified dorsal fin ray acts as a lure for prey (akin to a human angler, ...

as superorders, among others).

Genera

*''

Cretatriacanthus ''Cretatriacanthus'' is an extinct genus of prehistoric marine ray-finned fish from the Late Cretaceous. It contains a single species, ''C. guidottii'' from the late Campanian or early Maastrichtian of Nardò, Italy. It is generally placed as a ...

'' Tyler & Sorbini, 1996 *'' Slovenitriacanthus'' Tyler & Križnar, 2013

References

Tetraodontiformes Prehistoric ray-finned fish families {{paleo-tetraodontiformes-stub Santonian first appearances Campanian extinctions Taxa named by James C. Tyler