2020/10/08 by Eric J. Hilton, Lance Grande, Fan Jin · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology #Ichthyology and Marine Biology #Fish biology, ecology, and behavior
paper · doi:10.1017/jpa.2020.80
openalex publication_date 2020/10/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Abstract The family †Peipiaosteidae contains the genera † Peipiaosteus , † Stichopterus , † Spherosteus , † Yanosteus , and † Liaosteus , all from Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous deposits of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. Although the family has taxonomically expanded since it was first established for † P. pani Liu and Zhou, 1965, the amount of detailed comparative data for many of the taxa involved is lacking. In this paper, we describe the osteology of the monotypic genus † Yanosteus from the Yixian Formation (Early Cretaceous) of China largely on the basis of a newly prepared, well-preserved specimen. † Yanosteus is characterized by a series of infraorbital ossicles (a characteristic of the family), a broad, rounded palatopterygoid, a robust dentary, an extremely small opercle and a subopercle with distinctly long and rounded anterior process and a posteriorly scalloped margin, a broad and weakly forked caudal fin, an elongate dorsal fin with more than 160–178 fin rays (diagnostic for the genus), and a short but well-formed pectoral fin spine. We use the results of this study to discuss the characters of the †Peipiaosteioidei and the diversity of †peipiaosteioids.