Plethodidae is an extinct

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

teleost Teleostei (; Greek ''teleios'' "complete" + ''osteon'' "bone"), members of which are known as teleosts ), is, by far, the largest infraclass in the class Actinopterygii, the ray-finned fishes, containing 96% of all extant species of fish. Tel ...

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of li ...

that existed during the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...

period.

Fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s are known from

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, and

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Description

Plethodids possessed thin, angelfish-like bodies and often had high

dorsal fin A dorsal fin is a fin located on the back of most marine and freshwater vertebrates within various taxa of the animal kingdom. Many species of animals possessing dorsal fins are not particularly closely related to each other, though through conv ...

s which made them distinctive from other types of fish. Their skeletons were partially

cartilaginous Cartilage is a resilient and smooth type of connective tissue. In tetrapods, it covers and protects the ends of long bones at the joints as articular cartilage, and is a structural component of many body parts including the rib cage, the neck and ...

, though the amount varied from one species to another.

Genera

As of 2005, there are seventeen recognized genera in the family Plethodidae: * '' Bachea'' * '' Bananogmius'' * '' Dixonanogmius'' * '' Enischnorhynchus'' * '' Luxilites'' * '' Martinichthys'' * '' Moorevillia'' * '' Niobrara'' * ''

Paranogmius ''Paranogmius'' is an extinct genus of prehistoric bony fish that lived during the Cenomanian. It is known from only 2 partial skulls and several dorsal vertebrae discovered in the Bahariya Formation that was destroyed during World War II.Weiler ...

'' * '' Pentanogmius'' * '' Plethodus'' * '' Pseudonogmius'' * '' Pseudothryptodus'' * '' Syntegmodus'' * '' Thryptodus'' * '' Tselfatia'' * '' Zanclites''

References

Tselfatiiformes Prehistoric ray-finned fish families Cretaceous bony fish Late Cretaceous first appearances Late Cretaceous extinctions {{paleo-rayfinned-fish-stub