''Prohalecites'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

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 ...

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

from the

Ladinian The Ladinian is a stage and age in the Middle Triassic series or epoch. It spans the time between Ma and ~237 Ma (million years ago). The Ladinian was preceded by the Anisian and succeeded by the Carnian (part of the Upper or Late Triassic ...

and possibly

Carnian The Carnian (less commonly, Karnian) is the lowermost stage (stratigraphy), stage of the Upper Triassic series (stratigraphy), Series (or earliest age (geology), age of the Late Triassic Epoch (reference date), Epoch). It lasted from 237 to 227.3 ...

(

Triassic The Triassic ( ; sometimes symbolized 🝈) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.5 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.4 Mya. The Triassic is t ...

) 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 ...

. It is the oldest known teleosteomorph, a group that includes extant

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

and their close fossil relatives. The

type Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * ...

and only known species, ''Prohalecites porroi'', was first described as "''

Pholidophorus ''Pholidophorus'' (from , 'horny scale' and , 'to bear') is an extinct genus of Stem group, stem-teleost fish. Numerous species were assigned to this genus in the past, but only the type species ''Pholidophorus latiusculus'', from the Late Tria ...

porroi''" by Cristoforo Bellotti, but it was later accommodated in its own genus by Wilhelm Deecke. The species ''"Pholidophorus" microlepidotus'' has occasionally been included in this genus as well, but it differed greatly from ''P. porroi'' in several respects, indicating that it was not closely related. Species of ''Prohalecites'' are small, often measuring not more than in body length.

References

Prehistoric teleostei Monotypic ray-finned fish genera Prehistoric ray-finned fish genera Ladinian genera Carnian genera Middle Triassic fish Late Triassic fish of Europe Triassic Italy Fossils of Italy Fossil taxa described in 1889 {{Triassic-fish-stub

See also

References