''Eomola'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

ocean sunfish The ocean sunfish (''Mola mola''), also known as the common mola, is one of the largest bony fish in the world. It is the type species of the genus ''Mola'', and one of five extant species in the family Molidae. It was once misidentified as th ...

that inhabited the northeastern

Tethys Ocean The Tethys Ocean ( ; ), also called the Tethys Sea or the Neo-Tethys, was a prehistoric ocean during much of the Mesozoic Era and early-mid Cenozoic Era. It was the predecessor to the modern Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Eurasia ...

during the

Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes ...

. It contains a single species, ''E. bimaxillaria'' from the

Bartonian The Bartonian is, in the International Commission on Stratigraphy's (ICS) geologic time scale, a stage or age in the middle of the Eocene Epoch or Series. The Bartonian Age spans the time between . It is preceded by the Lutetian and is follow ...

-aged

Kuma Formation Kuma or KUMA may refer to: Characters * Kuma, a bear, also known as Teddie in English localization of ''Persona 4'' * Kuma (''Tekken''), father and son characters of the same name in the ''Tekken'' franchise * Kuma Lisa, an archetypal character ...

Krasnodar Krai Krasnodar Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (a krai), located in the North Caucasus region in Southern Russia and is administratively a part of the Southern Federal District. Its administrative center is the t ...

, Russia. It is one of the earliest fossil ocean sunfishes known, and differs from all others in the structure of its jaws. The genus ''Eomola'' was described in 1992 by James Tyler and Alexandre Bannikov.

References

External links

Evolution of the Ocean Sunfish
Molidae Monotypic prehistoric ray-finned fish genera Prehistoric percomorph genera Eocene fish of Europe Bartonian genera Fossils of Russia Fossil taxa described in 1992 {{paleo-tetraodontiformes-stub