Platinx Temporal range:
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Specimen from Monte Bolca | |
Scientific classification ![]() | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Actinopterygii |
Order: | †Crossognathiformes |
Family: | †Pachyrhizodontidae |
Genus: | †Platinx Agassiz, 1835 |
Species: | †P. macropterus
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Binomial name | |
†Platinx macropterus (de Blainville, 1818)
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Synonyms | |
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Platinx is an extinct genus of marine ray-finned fish that inhabited the northern Tethys Ocean during the early to middle Eocene.[1] It was the last surviving member of the ancient order Crossognathiformes, which was a dominant and successful group throughout the preceding Mesozoic era.[2][3]
It contains a single species, P. macropterus, whose remains are primarily known from the late Ypresian-aged rocks of Monte Bolca, Italy.[4] However, specimens have also been recovered from the earliest-Ypresian Danata Formation of Turkmenistan (sometimes placed in their own distinct species, P. cognitus Daniltshenko, 1968, although these do not appear to be distinct enough from P. macropterus),[3] as well as incomplete remains from the middle Eocene of Syria.[5]
The extinct bonytongues Monopteros and Thrissopterus, which co-occur with Platinx in Monte Bolca, were for a time briefly reclassified as a species of Platinx (P. gigas), although they are now known to be distinct.[3][6]