Bathysoma Temporal range: Early-Mid
Paleocene,
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Life restoration | |
Scientific classification
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Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Actinopterygii |
Order: | Lampriformes |
Genus: | †
Bathysoma Davis, 1890 |
Species: | †B. lutkeni
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Binomial name | |
†Bathysoma lutkeni Davis, 1890
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Bathysoma is an extinct genus of marine lampriform ray-finned fish from the early-mid Paleocene. It contains a single species, B. lutkeni from Sweden. Its fossils are common in exposures of the Danian København Limestone Formation at Limhamns kalkbrott, one of the largest quarries in northern Europe. A single specimen is also known from an erratic boulder from the Selandian Lellinge Greensand Formation of southern Sweden. [1] [2] [3]
It is the second oldest lampriform known, after Nardovelifer of Campanian/ Maastrichtian Italy. [4] B. lutkeni has a disk-shaped body and an elongated head. It was originally described as a menid bony fish. [1] Later, it was described as being a basal snake mackerel. [5] Eventually, anatomical similarities with the turkmenids were noted, and B. lutkeni is now regarded as an extremely basal lamprid. [4] [6]