Bathysoma
Extinct genus of fishes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Bathysoma is an extinct genus of marine lampriform ray-finned fish from the early-mid Paleocene. It contains a single species, B. lutkeni from Sweden. Its fossils are common in exposures of the Danian København Limestone Formation at Limhamns kalkbrott, one of the largest quarries in northern Europe. A single specimen is also known from an erratic boulder from the Selandian Lellinge Greensand Formation of southern Sweden.[1][2][3]
| Bathysoma Temporal range: Early-Mid Paleocene, | |
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| Life restoration | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Lampriformes |
| Genus: | †Bathysoma Davis, 1890 |
| Species: | †B. lutkeni |
| Binomial name | |
| †Bathysoma lutkeni Davis, 1890 | |
It is the second oldest lampriform known, after Nardovelifer of Campanian/Maastrichtian Italy.[4] B. lutkeni has a disk-shaped body and an elongated head. It was originally described as a menid bony fish.[1] Later, it was described as being a basal snake mackerel.[5] Eventually, anatomical similarities with the turkmenids were noted, and B. lutkeni is now regarded as an extremely basal lamprid.[4][6]
