Aidachar
Extinct genus of ray-finned fishes
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Aidachar (named for Aydahar, a mythical Kazakh dragon) is an extinct genus of freshwater ichthyodectiform ray-finned fish from the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian-Turonian)[1] of Central Asia and North Africa.
| Aidachar Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, | |
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| Life restoration of A. paludalis | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | †Ichthyodectiformes |
| Family: | †Cladocyclidae |
| Genus: | †Aidachar Nesov, 1981 |
| Species | |
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The type species is A. paludalis, named by Lev Alexandrovitch Nesov in 1981 from remains discovered in the Bissekty Formation, in what is now the Kyzyl Kum desert of Uzbekistan.[2][3] At first, he tentatively described the fossil material as the jaw fragments of a ctenochasmatid pterosaur (a flying reptile), but reinterpreted Aidachar as a fish in 1986.[2][4] The second species, A. pankowskii, is described from Kem Kem Group of Morocco and reclassified from the genus Cladocyclus, to which it is thought to be closely related.[5][6]
