Rhamphoichthys, a swordfish before there were swordfish

[Halichoeres]

This came out about a month ago, and I'd meant to post about it but forgot. Several partial skeletons including two fairly complete skulls comprise the new species Rhamphoichthys taxidiotis ("traveling fish with a beak"). It appears to be a member of the Tselfatiiformes, along with animals like Bananogmius and Concavotectum, not closely related to modern billfishes or to Protosphyraena, which is also superficially similar.

Here's the skull:


The description is open access in Royal Society Open Science:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.231296

Edited to add this reconstruction by Sky Jung:

[Stegotyranno420]

Forget crabs, turns out the swordfish bodyplan is the peak bodyplan.

[Halichoeres]

Forget crabs, turns out the swordfish bodyplan is the peak bodyplan.

Pokey-face > grabby-hands.