Plectocretacicoidei is an extinct

suborder Order () is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and recognized ...

Actinopterygii Actinopterygii (; ), members of which are known as ray-finned fish or actinopterygians, is a class (biology), class of Osteichthyes, bony fish that comprise over 50% of living vertebrate species. They are so called because of their lightly built ...

belonging to the

order Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * A socio-political or established or existing order, e.g. World order, Ancien Regime, Pax Britannica * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood ...

Tetraodontiformes Tetraodontiformes (), also known as the Plectognathi, is an order of ray-finned fishes which includes the pufferfishes and related taxa. This order has been classified as a suborder of the order Perciformes, although recent studies have found ...

, which includes the triggerfishes, filefishes, pufferfishes and related groups. The fishes in this suborder were extant from the

Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the more recent 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 ''cre ...

(

Santonian The Santonian is an age in the geologic timescale or a chronostratigraphic stage. It is a subdivision of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or Upper Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 86.3 ± 0.7 mya ( million years ago) and 83.6 ± 0.7 m ...

Campanian The Campanian is the fifth of six ages of the Late Cretaceous epoch on the geologic timescale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS). In chronostratigraphy, it is the fifth of six stages in the Upper Cretaceous Series. Campa ...

) of

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

, both in the former Tethyan region, and are regarded as basal Tetraodontiformes. The classification of the Plectocretacicoidei as a sister group to the Tetraodontiformes has been challenged and many of the characteristics which were used to suggest a close relationship to the Tetraodontiformes are shared with the Lophiiformes, the anglerfishes, and the Lophiiformes and Tetraodontiformes share derived characteristics which are not present in the Plectocretacicoidei. The authors of this study suggest that the taxa included within Plectocretacicoidei are basal members of the

Percomorpha Percomorpha () is an extremely large and diverse clade of ray-finned fish. With more than 17,000 known species (including Scombroidei, tuna, Syngnathiformes, seahorses, gobies, Cichlidae, cichlids, flatfish, Labridae, wrasse, Perciformes, perches ...

Families

''Plectocretacicoidei'' includes the following families:' *

Cretatriacanthidae Cretatriacanthidae is an extinct family of prehistoric marine Actinopterygii, ray-finned fish from the Late Cretaceous. It contains two genera, both known from southern Europe. Placed in the suborder Plectocretacicoidei alongside several other s ...

Tyler & Sorbini, 1996 * Plectocretacicidae Tyler & Sorbini, 1996 * Protriacanthidae Tyler & Sorbini, 1996

Referernces

{{Taxonbar, from=Q129813360 Tetraodontiformes Prehistoric fish Fish suborders Taxa named by James C. Tyler