The newly-identified species of tristichopterid fish grew up to 3 m (10 feet) long and belongs to the extinct genus Hyneria.
Hyneria udlezinye roamed the prehistoric oceans during the Devonian period, about 360 million years ago.
The new species is a member of Tristichopteridae, a diverse and successful group of tetrapodomorph fishes that existed throughout the Middle and Late Devonian epochs.
Within this group sizes ranged from a few tens of centimeters (genus Tristichopterus) to several meters (Hyneria and Eusthenodon).
“Tristichopterid fishes represent the sister group of elpistostegalians and digit bearing tetrapods,” said Dr. Robert Gess from the Albany Museum and Geology Department at Rhodes University and Professor Per Ahlberg from the Department of Organismal Biology at Uppsala University.
“They achieved a worldwide distribution during the later part of the Devonian period, before becoming extinct during the end-Devonian mass extinction event.”
“Most known species have either been recovered from the tropical to subtropically deposited sediments of Euramerica or alternately from Australia which, towards the end of the Devonian, formed the low latitude northern rim of Gondwana.”
Several fossilized specimens of Hyneria udlezinye were found in the Gondwanan high-latitude lagerstätte at Waterloo Farm near Makhanda/Grahamstown in South Africa.
The preserved material comprises most of the dermal skull, lower jaw, gill cover and shoulder girdle.
“The Hyneria material from Waterloo Farm consists predominantly of dermal bones, though some elements of the axial skeleton and paired fins are also preserved,” the paleontologists noted.
“Material is preserved in muddy carbonaceous metashale.”
“The total body length of the holotype individual of Hyneria udlezinye was in the range of 1.8-1.9 m; some isolated bones, however, come from larger individuals,” they added.
“An isolated cleithrum, for example, is 50% larger than that of the type…
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