Palaeoneiros, a new ray-finned fish from the Devonian of Pennsylvania

[Halichoeres]

This tiny fish (5.5 cm) has been sitting in a museum drawer for 100 years, mostly ignored. It's finally been described, and despite being from the Late Devonian, it has much more in common with known Carboniferous ray-finned fishes, which suggests that a lot of the diversity in Late Paleozoic fishes was already showing up before the end of the Devonian.

An illustration by Sky Jung alongside a CT scan of the fossil.

Paper (paywall): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-022-01919-4

And a popular press write-up: https://www.sci.news/paleontology/palaeoneiros-clackorum-11404.html

[Faelrin]

Any idea whereabouts in PA it was found? Nice to see another important fossil find reported from here (like Yorkicystis haefneri from earlier in the year), even if it was essentially forgotten about prior. At least it was found once again and finally described.

[Pachyrhinosaurus]

Very interesting-- great to see something from my home state!

Any idea whereabouts in PA it was found? Nice to see another important fossil find reported from here (like Yorkicystis haefneri from earlier in the year), even if it was essentially forgotten about prior. At least it was found once again and finally described.

My first thought was Red Hill, but the color of the matrix doesn't match.

[Gwangi]

Also curious to know where it was found specifically. I went on a fossil dig at Red Hill some years ago. I found numerous little fish bones and scales but my wife found the best fossil that day, an inch long tooth from a lobe-finned fish. Wherever this is from, it's a cool discovery. I have a lot of love for the Devonian.

[Halichoeres]

It's from the Chadakoin Formation, Warren County.

@Gwangi that sounds so cool, I should pay a visit one of these days and dig around.

[Newt]

Neat! The appearance of "Carboniferous" traits in a Late Devonian actinopterygian parallels the recent discoveries of (so far extremely fragmentary) Mississippian-style tetrapods in Late Devonian deposits (Horton Bluff/Blue Beach in Canada, Strud in Belgium, and the classic sites at Red Hill and in East Greenland). It's like the whole Mississippian fauna was already there, biding its time and waiting for the big old-fashioned lummoxes (placoderms, tristichopterids, holoptychiids, ichthyostegids) to kick it so they could explore their true potential.

I tried and failed to come up with something about the cavalry charging into Romer's Gap. Not enough coffee yet.

Also, small palaeoniscoids always look to me like anchovies in gar-skin suits.

[Halichoeres]

Anchovies clad in gar armor really does approximate them pretty well!