''Hemingwaya'' 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 ...

billfish The billfish are a group (Xiphioidea) of saltwater fish, saltwater predatory fish characterised by prominent pointed beak, bills (rostrum (anatomy), rostra), and by their large size; some are longer than . Extant billfish include sailfish and m ...

in the

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Hemingwayidae that lived during the earliest Eocene epoch, approximately 56 to 55 million years ago. It contains a single species, ''H. sarissa''. Members of this family are characterized by their elongated, spear-like bills, a feature that defines modern billfish such as

swordfish The swordfish (''Xiphias gladius''), also known as the broadbill in some countries, are large, highly migratory predatory fish characterized by a long, flat, pointed bill. They are the sole member of the Family (biology), family Xiphiidae. They ...

and

marlin Marlins are fish from the family Istiophoridae, which includes between 9 and 11 species, depending on the taxonomic authority. Name The family's common name is thought to derive from their resemblance to a sailor's marlinspike. Taxonomy T ...

s. It is known from the Danata Formation of

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest and the Caspian Sea to the west. Ash ...

, which represented a far eastern inland arm of the

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 ...

, and was deposited in the earliest Eocene shortly after the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. The genus name honors famed author

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway ( ; July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer and journalist. Known for an economical, understated style that influenced later 20th-century writers, he has been romanticized fo ...

, who prominently featured a

in his 1952 novella ''

The Old Man and the Sea ''The Old Man and the Sea'' is a 1952 novella by the American author Ernest Hemingway. Written between December 1950 and February 1951, it was the last major fictional work Hemingway published during his lifetime. It tells the story of Santiag ...

,'' while the species name "''sarissa''" originates from the Greek word for "spear". The fossils of ''Hemingwaya'' provide insight into the early

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

of billfishes, representing one of the first known lineages to exhibit the characteristic bill-like morphology. These fish were part of the broader group of "billfish-like" species, which evolved specialized hunting adaptations for catching fast-moving prey. While the exact diversity within the family is limited, the fossil record indicates that ''Hemingwaya'' were part of the evolutionary stem group that led to the development of modern billfishes.

Description

Hemingwaya sarissa resembled a juvenile specimen of the extant sailfish (

Istiophorus platypterus The Indo-Pacific sailfish (''Istiophorus platypterus'') is a sailfish native to the Indian and Pacific Oceans and is naturalized in the Atlantic where it has entered the Mediterranean Sea via the Suez Canal as a Lessepsian migrant. It is dark b ...

) and had an elongated body. The upper and lower jaws were very elongated. The upper jaw rostrum was formed by the premaxilla . The lower jaw was only slightly shorter than the upper jaw rostrum. Both jaws were covered with small, brush-like teeth. The caudal fin skeleton had two separate hypuralia , and the caudal fin was forked. Of the total of 30 to 40 vertebrae, 15 to 20 supported the abdomen and 15 to 20 supported the caudal fin peduncle. The last five or six vertebrae of the caudal fin peduncle had lateral parapophyses. The head behind the orbits and the sides of the body were covered by six longitudinal rows of scales.Harry L. Fierstine: ''Fossil History of Billfishes (Xiphioidei).'' Bulletin of Marine Science, Volume 79, Issue 3, January 2006, Seiten 433–453

References

† A dagger, obelisk, or obelus is a typographical mark that usually indicates a footnote if an asterisk has already been used. The symbol is also used to indicate death (of people) or extinction (of species or languages). It is one of the mo ...

Monotypic prehistoric ray-finned fish genera Prehistoric percomorph genera Fossils of Turkmenistan Eocene fish of Asia Fossil taxa described in 2002 {{Carangiformes-stub Ernest Hemingway