''Enischorhynchus'' (Greek for "slender snout") 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 during 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 a single species, ''E. dallasensis'' from the late

Santonian The Santonian is an age in the geologic timescale or a chronostratigraphic stage. It is a subdivision of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 86.3 ± 0.7 mya ( million years ago) and 83.6 ± 0.7 m ...

or early

Campanian The Campanian is the fifth of six ages of the Late Cretaceous epoch on the geologic timescale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). In chronostratigraphy, it is the fifth of six stages in the Upper Cretaceous Series. Campa ...

-aged

Austin Formation The Austin Chalk is an upper Cretaceous geologic formation in the Gulf Coast region of the United States. It is named after type section outcrops near Austin, Texas. The formation is made up of chalk and marl. Fossils The putative galloansera ...

of southern Texas, USA. It was a member of the

Plethodidae Plethodidae is an extinct Family (biology), family of Teleostei, teleost fish that existed during the Late Cretaceous period. Fossils are known from North America, North Africa, and Europe. Description Plethodids possessed thin, Pomacanthidae, ...

, a dominant family of nektonic fish during the mid-late Cretaceous. It shows close morphological similarities and may be related to '' Concavotectum'' and '' Bachea''. It was likely an

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

of the southern

Western Interior Seaway The Western Interior Seaway (also called the Cretaceous Seaway, the Niobraran Sea, the North American Inland Sea, or the Western Interior Sea) was a large inland sea (geology), inland sea that existed roughly over the present-day Great Plains of ...

References

Tselfatiiformes {{cretaceous-fish-stub Monotypic prehistoric ray-finned fish genera Late Cretaceous bony fish Santonian genus first appearances Campanian genus extinctions Late Cretaceous fish of North America Fossils of Texas Fossil taxa described in 1965

See also

References