''Hongyu'', represented by its type species ''Hongyu chowi'', is an extinct

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, w ...

lobe-finned fish Sarcopterygii (; ) — sometimes considered synonymous with Crossopterygii () — is a taxon (traditionally a class or subclass) of the bony fishes known as the lobe-finned fishes. The group Tetrapoda, a mostly terrestrial superclass includi ...

. About 1.5 m in length, it resembles both

Elpistostegalia Elpistostegalia or Panderichthyida is an order of prehistoric lobe-finned fishes which lived during the Middle Devonian to Late Devonian period (about 385 to 374 million years ago). They represent the advanced tetrapodomorph stock, the fishes ...

and

Rhizodontida Rhizodontida is an extinct group of predatory tetrapodomorphs known from many areas of the world from the Givetian through to the Pennsylvanian - the earliest known species is about 377 million years ago (Mya), the latest around 310 Mya. Rhizodo ...

, making its phylogenetic placement uncertain. The type specimen was discovered in the

Zhongning Formation Zhongning County is a county under the administration of Zhongwei city in west-central Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China, bordering Inner Mongolia to the northwest. It is the point at which the northern twist of th ...

near

Ningxia Ningxia (,; , ; alternately romanized as Ninghsia), officially the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (NHAR), is an autonomous region in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. Formerly a province, Ningxia was incorporated into Gansu in ...

in China’s

North China Block The North China Craton is a continental crustal block with one of Earth's most complete and complex records of igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic processes. It is located in northeast China, Inner Mongolia, the Yellow Sea, and North Korea ...

References

Tetrapodomorphs Prehistoric lobe-finned fish genera Devonian bony fish Prehistoric animals of China {{Paleo-lobefinned-fish-stub