Bluefieldius, a new fish genus from West Virginia, USA

[Halichoeres]

This new fish from the Lower Carboniferous represents a primitive lineage of actinopterygians (that's most living fishes). This is great because this is a gappy part of the record and a gappy part of the tree. Hopefully this will be included in a well-sampled explicit phylogenetic study before long. It's named Bluefieldius after the Bluefield formation where it was found (also near the town of Bluefield, West Virginia). I can't help but suspect that Dr. Mickle had the related genus Redfieldius in mind when she named it, although the paper doesn't say so.



Open access: https://peerj.com/articles/5533/

[Ezikot]

...and a very-well preserved specimen, if i may say.

Thank you for sharing so many paleo-news!