''Cockerellites'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of extinct

temperate bass The Moronidae is a family of percomorph fishes, commonly called the temperate basses, in the order Moroniformes. These fishes are found in the freshwaters of North America and the coastal waters of the North Atlantic. Taxonomy Moronidae was fi ...

described from

early Eocene 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 ...

-aged fossils found in the

Green River Formation The Green River Formation is an Eocene geologic formation that records the sedimentation in a group of intermountain lakes in three basins along the present-day Green River (Colorado River), Green River in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. The sedimen ...

Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...

. It is characterized by a sunfish-like body and its stout dorsal and anal spines. The type species, ''C. liops'', was originally named as a species of '' Priscacara'' by

Edward Drinker Cope Edward Drinker Cope (July 28, 1840 – April 12, 1897) was an American zoologist, paleontology, paleontologist, comparative anatomy, comparative anatomist, herpetology, herpetologist, and ichthyology, ichthyologist. Born to a wealthy Quaker fam ...

upon creating the genus in 1877, but ''P. liops'' was moved to the newly created genus ''Cockerellites'' by D. Jordan and H. Hanibal in 1923. Some authors, such as Whitlock (2010), still consider ''Cockerellites liops'' as a species of ''Priscacara''. ''C. liops'' is based on the holotype USNM 4044, and it was placed in ''Priscacara'' as ''P. liops'' but is now considered a separate genus. ''C. liops'' was originally seen as the most common species of ''Priscacara'' within the Green River

lacustrine A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from t ...

deposits, and at specific locations, it outnumbers ''P. serrata'' by over 3:1. The two species differ in the number of dorsal and anal fin rays, as well as possibly a coarser serrated rear edge of the preopercle in ''P. serrata''. ''C. liops'' also has small conical teeth on the pharyngeal jaw, whereas ''P. serrata'' has large grinding tooth plates, suggesting a diet of snails and crustaceans.

References

† A dagger, obelisk, or obelus is a typographical mark that usually indicates a footnote if an asterisk has already been used. The symbol is also used to indicate death (of people) or extinction (of species or languages). It is one of the mo ...

Prehistoric percomorph genera Monotypic prehistoric ray-finned fish genera Eocene fish of North America Lutetian genera Fossils of the United States Fossil taxa described in 1923 Taxa named by David Starr Jordan {{Acanthuriformes-stub