Pantanodontidae, the spine killifishes, is a family of killifish in the

suborder Order () is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and recognized ...

Cyprinodontoidei Cyprinodontoidei is a suborder of fishes, one of the two suborders in the order Cyprinodontiformes. The Cyprinodontoidei consists of eleven families which are found in the Americas, the Mediterranean and in Africa, including Madagascar. Classi ...

. It is the most basal member of the suborder, being the

sister A sister is a woman or a girl who shares parents or a parent with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to ref ...

to all other members of the clade. It contains about 13 species in 4 genera which are native to freshwater and estuarine habitats of

East Africa East Africa, also known as Eastern Africa or the East of Africa, is a region at the eastern edge of the Africa, African continent, distinguished by its unique geographical, historical, and cultural landscape. Defined in varying scopes, the regi ...

, including at least formerly

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

. In addition, several fossil members of this group are known to have inhabited Europe. Many species have extremely small ranges and some are likely extinct. Prolebias cephalotes

The following genera are known: * '' Aliteranodon'' Meinema & Huber, 2023 * '' Eremodon'' Huber & Meinema, 2024 * †'' Malagodon'' Meinema & Huber, 2023 (extinct ca. 1990s) * '' Pantanodon'' G. S. Myers, 1955 The fossil genus †'' Paralebias'' Gaudant, 2013 is known from the

Late Oligocene The Chattian is, in the geologic timescale The geologic time scale or geological time scale (GTS) is a representation of time based on the rock record of Earth. It is a system of chronological dating that uses chronostratigraphy (the pro ...

and

Early Miocene The Early Miocene (also known as Lower Miocene) is a sub-epoch of the Miocene epoch (geology), Epoch made up of two faunal stage, stages: the Aquitanian age, Aquitanian and Burdigalian stages. The sub-epoch lasted from 23.03 ± 0.05 annum, Ma to ...

of Europe. It is sometimes synonymized with '' Pantanodon'', although this was done prior to the splitting up of the genus. ''Paralebias'' itself may be

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage that includes organisms with mixed evolutionary origin but does not include their most recent common ancestor. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as Homoplasy, homoplasies ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q100154058 Percomorpha families