Hensodon

Hensodon
Temporal range: Late Cretaceous (upper Cenomanian)
Artist's impression of a male (top) and female
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: †Pycnodontiformes
Family: †Coccodontidae
Genus: †Hensodon
Kriwet, 2004
Species:
†H. spinosus
Binomial name
†Hensodon spinosus
Kriwet, 2004

Hensodon is an extinct genus of marine pycnodont ray-finned fish known from the Late Cretaceous of the Middle East. It contains a single species, H. spinosus, that lived during the upper Cenomanian-aged Sannine Formation of what is now Lebanon. H. spinosus superficially resembled a marine angelfish with a massive head, and a very spiny pectoral girdle. Different specimens have different arrangements of the horn-like frontal spines, and these are potentially thought to represent sexual dimorphism within the species. One form has the horns arranged as a double-prong, assumed to be the male, and the other form, assumed to be the female, having the horns one after the other, like those of a rhinoceros.

Male specimen of H. spinosus

References

  1. 1 2 Sepkoski, Jack (2002). "A compendium of fossil marine animal genera". Bulletins of American Paleontology. 363: 1–560. Archived from the original on 2008-04-30. Retrieved 2009-02-27.
  2. ↑ Kriwet, Jürgen (2004-09-10). "A new pycnodont fish genus (Neopterygii: Pycnodontiformes) from the Cenomanian (Upper Cretaceous) of Mount Lebanon". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 24 (3): 525–532. doi:10.1671/0272-4634(2004)024[0525:ANPFGN]2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0272-4634.
  3. ↑ Capasso, Luigi (2024-08-02). "Biodiversity of †pycnodonts (Actinopterygii) during the Cenomanian–Turonian (Upper Cretaceous)". Historical Biology. 36 (8): 1557–1569. doi:10.1080/08912963.2023.2221269. ISSN 0891-2963.
  4. ↑ CAPASSO, Luigi Lorenzo; Louis TAVERNE; Roy NOHRA (20 October 2010). "A re-description of Hensodon spinosus, a remarkable coccodontid fish(Actinopterygii, †Pycnodontiformes) from the Cenomanian (Late Cretaceous)of Haqel, Lebanon" (PDF). Bulletin de l'Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, Sciences de la Terre. 80: 145–162.[permanent dead link]