Foreyia
Extinct genus of coelacanths
Foreyia is an extinct genus of coelacanth lobe-finned fish which lived during the Middle Triassic period in what is now Canton of Graubünden, Switzerland. It contains a single species F. maxkuhni.
01Naming
The generic name honors the late Peter L. Forey for his contributions to the study of coelacanth fishes. The specific epithet honors Max Kuhn, who had been instrumental in preparing fossils from Monte San Giorgio for 12 years, including the holotype and paratype specimens of F. maxkuhni.
02Description and classification
F. maxkuhni is an aberrant-looking member of the family Latimeriidae, with a proportionally enormous head, a curved, beak-like maxilla, an underbite, and a low, horn-like point on its otherwise dome-like head. Despite such a bizarre appearance, phylogenetic analyses squarely place F. maxkuhni as the sister taxon of Ticinepomis, another latimeriid also found in the same strata. The two latimeriids share numerous anatomical traits with each other, strongly suggesting a close relation. Foreyia, Ticinepomis and Rieppelia are grouped in the subfamily Ticinepomiinae.
Foreyia in cladogram after Toriño et al., 2021.
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Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Foreyia”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Skeleton of Foreyia maxkuhni.jpg by Lionel Cavin, Bastien Mennecart, Christian Obrist, Loïc Costeur & Heinz Furrer, CC BY 4.0
- Reconstruction of the living coelacanth Foreyia maxkuhni - Alain Bénéteau.jpg by Alain Bénéteau, CC BY 4.0
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