''Sharfia mirabilis'' is an extinct species of

anglerfish The anglerfish are fish of the teleost order Lophiiformes (). They are bony fish named for their characteristic mode of predation, in which a modified luminescent fin ray (the esca or illicium) acts as a lure for other fish. The luminescence ...

in the family Lophiidae. It was discovered in 2011 during a review of fossil material at the

Muséum national d'histoire naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History, known in French as the ' (abbreviation MNHN), is the national natural history museum of France and a ' of higher education part of Sorbonne Universities. The main museum, with four galleries, is loc ...

in Paris. The fossil material was collected from the

Monte Bolca Monte Bolca is a lagerstätte near Verona, Italy that was one of the first fossil sites with high quality preservation known to Europeans, and is still an important source of fossils from the Eocene. Geology Monte Bolca was uplifted from the T ...

Lagerstätte A Lagerstätte (, from ''Lager'' 'storage, lair' '' Stätte'' 'place'; plural ''Lagerstätten'') is a sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossils with exceptional preservation—sometimes including preserved soft tissues. These for ...

'', one of the earliest known Eocene fossil sites. The undescribed genus was originally identified as ''

Lophius brachysomus ''Lophius brachysomus'' is an extinct species of anglerfish in the family Lophiidae. It was described by Louis Agassiz in 1835 from the Monte Bolca locality. It became extinct during the middle Eocene (lowermost Lutetian). Species known from t ...

''. The fish lived around 50 million years ago during the

Ypresian In the geologic timescale the Ypresian is the oldest age (geology), age or lowest stage (stratigraphy), stratigraphic stage of the Eocene. It spans the time between , is preceded by the Thanetian Age (part of the Paleocene) and is followed by th ...

stage, making it the oldest lophiid found to date based on articulated skeletal remains. It has several features that distinguish it from other lophiids, in particular regarding its opercular bones. It probably inhabited the muddy and sandy bottoms of the inner

Tethys Ocean The Tethys Ocean ( el, Τηθύς ''Tēthús''), also called the Tethys Sea or the Neo-Tethys, was a prehistoric ocean that covered most of the Earth during much of the Mesozoic Era and early Cenozoic Era, located between the ancient continents ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q7489594 Eocene fish Lophiidae Monotypic fish genera Fossils of Italy Fossil taxa described in 2011