Superregnum: Eukaryota
Cladus: Unikonta
Cladus: Opisthokonta
Cladus: Holozoa
Regnum: Animalia
Subregnum: Eumetazoa
Cladus: Bilateria
Cladus: Nephrozoa
Superphylum: Deuterostomia
Phylum: Chordata
Subphylum: Vertebrata
Infraphylum: Gnathostomata
Megaclassis: Osteichthyes
Superclassis/Classis: Actinopterygii
Classis/Subclassis: Actinopteri
Subclassis/Infraclassis: Neopterygii
Infraclassis: Teleostei
Megacohors: Osteoglossocephalai
Supercohors: Clupeocephala
Cohors: Euteleosteomorpha
Subcohors: Neoteleostei
Infracohors: Eurypterygia
Section: Aulopa
Ordo: Aulopiformes
Subordo: †Enchodontoidei
Familia: †Enchodontidae
Genus: †Enchodus
Species: †E. amicrodus – †E. annectens – †E. brevis – †E. bursauxi – †E. crenulatus – †E. dirus – †E. dolichus – †E. elegans – †E. faujasii – †E. ferox – †E. gladiolus – †E. gracilis – †E. halocyon – †E. lamberti – †E. lemmonieri – †E. lewesiensis – †E. libycus – †E. litycus – †E. longipectoralis – †E. longipinnatus – †E. macropterus – †E. mecoanalis – †E. oliveirai – †E. petrosus – †E. pulchellus – †E. recurvus – †E. saevus – †E. serratus – †E. shumardi – †E. subaequilateralis – †E. valdensis – †E. venator – †E. zimapanensis – †E. zinensis
Name
Enchodus Agassiz 1835
Type species: Enchodus lewesiensis (Mantell, 1822)
References
Agassiz, L. 1835. Recherches Sur Les Poissons Fossiles. Tome IV (livr. 4). Imprimerie de Petitpierre: Neuchatel, Suisse. p. I–XII + 1–296. BHL Reference page.
Enchodus (from Greek: ἔγχος enchos, 'spear' and Greek: ὀδούς odoús 'tooth')[6] is an extinct genus of aulopiform ray-finned fish related to lancetfish and lizardfish. Species of Enchodus flourished during the Late Cretaceous, and there is some evidence that they may have survived to the Paleocene or Eocene; however, this may just represent reworked Cretaceous material.[7][8][9]
Taxonomy
Species of Enchodus are generally classified into two different clades, the North American and the Mediterranean. It has been proposed that this distinction is the result of several isolated events between the two populations over the Late Cretaceous.[5]
Enchodus[5]
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Phylogeny of the genus with some species
Description
Enchodus species were small to medium in size, large species (E. zinensis) reached 172.2 centimetres (67.8 in).[10] One of the genus' most notable attributes are the large "fangs" at the front of the upper and lower jaws and on the palatine bones, leading to its misleading nickname among fossil hunters and paleoichthyologists, "the saber-toothed herring". These fangs, along with a long sleek body and large eyes, suggest Enchodus was a predatory species.[1]
E. petrosus, with standard length around 76.7 centimetres (30.2 in)[10] and sometimes over 1 metre (3 ft 3 in),[11] remains of which are common from the Niobrara Chalk, the Mooreville Chalk Formation, the Pierre Shale, and other geological formations deposited within the Western Interior Seaway and the Mississippi Embayment. Large individuals of this species had fangs measuring over 6 centimetres (2.4 in) in length, giving its skull an appearance somewhat reminiscent of modern deep-sea fishes, such as anglerfish and viperfish. Other species were considerably smaller, some like E. parvus were only some centimeters (a few inches) long.[12]
Despite being a formidable predator, remains of Enchodus are commonly found among the stomach contents of larger predators, including sharks, other bony fish, mosasaurs, plesiosaurs and seabirds such as Baptornis advenus.
Distribution
Enchodus fossils have been found all over the world. In North America, Enchodus remains have been recovered from most US states with fossiliferous Late Cretaceous rocks, including Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Wyoming, Texas, California, North Carolina, and New Jersey. Fossils also have been found in the Aguja and El Doctor Formations of Mexico and the Ashville, Vermillion River and Dinosaur Park Formations, and Brown Bed Member of Canada. The taxon is also known from coeval strata in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, southwest Asia and the Tiupampan Santa Lucía Formation and Maastrichtian El Molino Formation of Bolivia and the Paraíba, Pernambuco and Sergipe states of Brazil.[2] Potentially the latest Enchodus remains are known from the earliest Eocene of Barmer, India.[8] However, it has also been suggested that all post-Cretaceous Enchodus records are just reworked material.[9]
References
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Everhart, Mike (2013). "Enchodus sp. - The Sabre-Toothed Fish of the Cretaceous". Oceans of Kansas. Archived from the original on November 18, 2022.
Enchodus at Fossilworks.org
"Global Names Index". Archived from the original on 2015-05-18. Retrieved 2015-05-13.
"Enchodus libycus". Mundo Fosil. Archived from the original on 2014-11-14. Retrieved 2015-05-13.
Waymon L. Holloway; Kerin M. Claeson; Hesham M. Sallam; Sanaa El-Sayed; Mahmoud Kora; Joseph J.W. Sertich; Patrick M. O’Connor (2017). "A new species of the neopterygian fish Enchodus from the Duwi Formation, Campanian, Late Cretaceous, Western Desert, central Egypt". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 62 (3): 603–611. doi:10.4202/app.00331.2016.
Roberts, George (1839). An etymological and explanatory dictionary of the terms and language of geology. London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans. p. 55. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
Fielitz, Christopher; González-Rodríguez, Katia A. (2010). "A New Species of Enchodus (aulopiformes: Enchodontidae) from the Cretaceous (albian to Cenomanian) of Zimapán, Hidalgo, México". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 30 (5): 1343–1351. Bibcode:2010JVPal..30.1343F. doi:10.1080/02724634.2010.501438. JSTOR 40864352. S2CID 84281080.
Rana, R. S.; Kumar, K.; Singh, H.; Rose, K. D. (2005). "Lower vertebrates from the Late Palaeocene–Earliest Eocene Akli Formation, Giral Lignite Mine, Barmer District, western India". Current Science. 89 (9): 1606–1613. JSTOR 24110948.
Davis, Matthew P.; Fielitz, Christopher (December 2010). "Estimating divergence times of lizardfishes and their allies (Euteleostei: Aulopiformes) and the timing of deep-sea adaptations". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 57 (3): 1194–1208. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2010.09.003. PMID 20854916.
Díaz-Cruz, Jesús Alberto; Alvarado-Ortega, Jesús; Ramírez-Sánchez, Marcia M.; Bernard, Emma Louise; Allington-Jones, Lu; Graham, Mark (November 2021). "Phylogenetic morphometrics, geometric morphometrics and the Mexican fossils to understand evolutionary trends of enchodontid fishes". Journal of South American Earth Sciences. 111: 103492. Bibcode:2021JSAES.11103492D. doi:10.1016/j.jsames.2021.103492.
Chida, Mori; Brinkman, Donald B.; Murray, Alison M. (October 2023). "A large, new dercetid fish (Teleostei: Aulopiformes) from the Campanian Bearpaw Formation of Alberta, Canada". Cretaceous Research. 150: 105579. Bibcode:2023CrRes.15005579C. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2023.105579. S2CID 258803963.
Everhart, M.J. (2017). Oceans of Kansas, Second Edition: A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea (Life of the Past). Indiana University Press. p. 117. ISBN 978-0253026323.
Further reading
Cope, Edward Drinker (1875). "Review of the Vertebrata of the Cretaceous Period Found West of the Mississippi River". Bulletin of the United States Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories. 1 (2): 5–16. OCLC 879313308. Gale BAGPVO689069586.
Everhart, Mike (2013). "Enchodus sp. - The Sabre-Toothed Fish of the Cretaceous". Oceans of Kansas. Archived from the original on November 18, 2022.
Russell, Dale A. (1988). A Check List of North American Marine Cretaceous Vertebrates Including Fresh Water Fishes. Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology. ISBN 978-1-55006-106-2.
Davis, Matthew P.; Fielitz, Christopher (December 2010). "Estimating divergence times of lizardfishes and their allies (Euteleostei: Aulopiformes) and the timing of deep-sea adaptations". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. 57 (3): 1194–1208. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2010.09.003. PMID 20854916.
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