''Goulmimichthys'' is an extinct

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 ...

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 ...

es in the family

Pachyrhizodontidae Crossognathiformes is an extinct order of ray-finned fish that lived from the Late Jurassic to the Eocene. Its phylogenetic placement is disputed; some authors have recovered it as part of the teleost stem group, while others place it in a basal ...

. The genus, first described by Cavin in 1995,''Goulmimichthys''
at

Fossilworks Fossilworks was a portal which provides query, download, and analysis tools to facilitate access to the Paleobiology Database, a large relational database assembled by hundreds of paleontologists from around the world. History Fossilworks was cr ...

.orgCavin, 1995, p.1049 is known from various

Turonian The Turonian is, in the International Commission on Stratigraphy, ICS' geologic timescale, the second age (geology), age in the Late Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch, or a stage (stratigraphy), stage in the Upper Cretaceous series (stratigraphy), ...

age formations. The

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

''G. arambourgi'' from the

Akrabou Formation The Akrabou Formation is a Late Cretaceous (latest Cenomanian to early/mid Turonian)-aged geological formation and Konservat-Lagerstätte in Morocco. It overlies the slightly older freshwater deposits of the Kem Kem Group, which it was once thought ...

in the El Rachidia Province of

Morocco Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It has coastlines on the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to Algeria–Morocc ...

,''Goulmimichthys''
at

GBIF The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is an international organisation that focuses on making scientific data on biodiversity available via the Internet using web services. The data are provided by many institutions from around the ...

.org and other fossils described are ''G. gasparini'' of the

La Frontera Formation The La Frontera Formation (, K2F, Ksf) is a geological formation, part of the Villeta Group, of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense and neighbouring areas of the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. The sequence of limestones and lydites dates to the ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

, and ''G. roberti'' from the

Agua Nueva Formation The Agua Nueva Formation is a geologic formation in Mexico. It preserves fossils dated to the latest Cenomanian and Turonian ages of the Cretaceous period. It consists "predominantly of alternating fossiliferous, organic matter-rich, laminated, d ...

of Mexico.

Etymology

The genus name ''Goulmimichthys'' is a combination of the Greek ''ichthys'', "fish" and Goulmima, the city in Morocco where the holotype fossils were found. The species

epithet An epithet (, ), also a byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) commonly accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a real or fictitious person, place, or thing. It is usually literally descriptive, as in Alfred the Great, Suleima ...

of the type species ''arambourgi'' refers to

Camille Arambourg Camille Arambourg (February 3, 1885 – November 19, 1969) was a French vertebrate paleontologist. He conducted extensive field work in North Africa. In the 1950s, he argued against the prevailing model of Neanderthals as brutish and simian. Du ...

, a French paleontologist who worked in North Africa. The species epithet ''gasparini'', given by

María Páramo María Euridice Páramo Fonseca (1963 – 5 January 2025) was a Colombian paleontologist and geologist.

, honours Argentinian paleontologist Zulma Gasparini.Hallan peces fosilizados en el Huila
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Description

The anterior process of the pelvic bone of ''Goulmimichthys'' has the same length as the four central abdominal vertebrae, a typical characteristic of the genus.Alvarado et al., 2006, p.269 The species ''G. roberti'' is known from disarticulated and articulated specimens.González & Arratia, 2010, p.125

Distribution and habitat

Fossils of the type species of ''Goulmimichthys'' have been described from the Lower Turonian

near Goulmima in eastern

.Bardet et al., 2008, p.613 Other species are described from the Turonian

near

Yaguará Yaguará () is a town and municipality in the Huila Department, Colombia. The urban centre is located at an elevation of in the Magdalena River, Magdalena River Valley and the Cordillera Oriental (Colombia), Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. ...

, Huila, in the

Eastern Ranges The Eastern Ranges is an Australian rules football team that currently competes in the Talent League, the Victorian statewide under-18s competition. History Inaugural playing squad (1992) Honours *Premiers (2): 2002, 2013 *Runners-up (6): 199 ...

of the

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

,Castelblanco & Vásquez, 2016 and the

of the

Lagerstätte A Fossil-Lagerstätte (, from ''Lager'' 'storage, lair' '' Stätte'' 'place'; plural ''Lagerstätten'') is a sedimentary deposit that preserves an exceptionally high amount of palaeontological information. ''Konzentrat-Lagerstätten'' preserv ...

Vallecillo in northeastern

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

.Blanco & Cavin, 2003, p.299 The fossil fishes were found in associations with other fossil genera, as in Mexico '' Nursallia gutturosum'', '' Rhynchodercetis regio'', ''

Tselfatia formosa ''Tselfatia'' is an extinct genus of Cretaceous bony fish. Originally described from (and named after) Djebl Tselfat in Morocco, it has since been discovered at sites in several other countries ( Texas/USA, Germany, Mexico, Italy and the former Y ...

'', '' Vallecillichthys multivertebratum'',González et al., 2013, p.19 in Morocco '' Ghrisichthys'' and ''

Enchodus ''Enchodus'' (from , 'spear' and 'tooth') is an extinct genus of aulopiformes, aulopiform Actinopterygii, ray-finned fish related to alepisaurus, lancetfish and lizardfish. Species of ''Enchodus'' flourished during the Late Cretaceous, where t ...

'',Cavin et al., 2015 and in Colombia '' Pachyrhizodus etayoi'' and '' Bachea huilensis''. Alongside the fossil fish assemblages, the fossils of

plesiosaur The Plesiosauria or plesiosaurs are an Order (biology), order or clade of extinct Mesozoic marine reptiles, belonging to the Sauropterygia. Plesiosaurs first appeared in the latest Triassic Period (geology), Period, possibly in the Rhaetian st ...

s as ''

Mauriciosaurus fernandezi ''Mauriciosaurus'' (meaning "Mauricio ernández Garza'sreptile") is a genus of polycotylidae, polycotylid plesiosauria, plesiosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Mexico. It contains a single species, ''M. fernandezi'' (also named after Fernánde ...

'' and '' Vallecillosaurus donrobertoi'' in Mexico, the

mosasaur Mosasaurs (from Latin ''Mosa'' meaning the 'Meuse', and Ancient Greek, Greek ' meaning 'lizard') are an extinct group of large aquatic reptiles within the family Mosasauridae that lived during the Late Cretaceous. Their first fossil remains wer ...

'' Yaguarasaurus columbianus'' in Colombia and the basal mosasaur '' Tethysaurus nopcsai'' and

turtle Turtles are reptiles of the order (biology), order Testudines, characterized by a special turtle shell, shell developed mainly from their ribs. Modern turtles are divided into two major groups, the Pleurodira (side necked turtles) and Crypt ...

s in Morocco were recovered.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * {{Taxonbar, from=Q52158590 Pachyrhizodontidae Cretaceous bony fish Turonian life Prehistoric fish of Africa Late Cretaceous fish of Africa Cretaceous Morocco Fossils of Morocco Late Cretaceous fish of North America Cretaceous Mexico Fossils of Mexico Late Cretaceous fish of South America Cretaceous Colombia Fossils of Colombia Fossil taxa described in 1995