Enchodus

Quality 0.50 · 1 view · Updated 2 months ago

Extinct genus of ray-finned fishes

title: "Enchodus" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["enchodontidae", "prehistoric-ray-finned-fish-genera", "cretaceous-bony-fish", "albian-genus-first-appearances", "cenomanian-genera", "turonian-genera", "coniacian-genera", "santonian-genera", "campanian-genera", "maastrichtian-genus-extinctions", "cretaceous-fish-of-north-america", "late-cretaceous-fish-of-south-america", "cretaceous-fish-of-europe", "late-cretaceous-fish-of-africa", "late-cretaceous-fish-of-asia", "fossils-of-the-united-states", "demopolis-chalk", "mooreville-chalk", "fossils-of-canada", "fossils-of-mexico", "tiupampan", "fossils-of-bolivia", "santa-lucía-formation", "fossils-of-brazil", "fossils-of-chile", "fossils-of-argentina", "fossils-of-peru", "fossils-of-england", "fossils-of-france", "fossils-of-spain", "fossils-of-the-netherlands", "fossils-of-belgium", "fossils-of-sweden", "fossils-of-germany", "fossils-of-italy", "fossils-of-the-czech-republic", "fossils-of-slovenia", "fossils-of-greece", "fossils-of-ukraine", "fossils-of-russia", "fossils-of-egypt", "fossils-of-morocco", "fossils-of-niger", "fossils-of-angola", "fossils-of-equatorial-guinea", "fossils-of-the-republic-of-the-congo", "fossils-of-saudi-arabia", "fossils-of-israel", "fossils-of-palestine", "fossils-of-syria", "fossils-of-lebanon", "fossils-of-jordan", "fossils-of-india", "fossils-of-japan", "fossil-taxa-described-in-1835", "taxa-named-by-louis-agassiz"] description: "Extinct genus of ray-finned fishes" topic_path: "geography/united-states" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchodus" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Extinct genus of ray-finned fishes ::

| fossil_range = Albian-Maastrichtian ~ Possible Barremian & Paleogene records | image = Enchodus Swimming Down.png | image_caption = E. petrosus mounted skeleton cast, Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center | taxon = Enchodus | authority = Agassiz, 1835 | type_species = Esox lewesiensis | type_species_authority = Mantell, 1822 | subdivision_ranks = Species | subdivision = ~26+, see text | synonyms = *Isodus Heckel, 1849

  • Phasganodus Leidy, 1857
  • Ischyrocephalus von der Marck, 1858
  • Solenodon Kramberger, 1881 (preocc.)
  • ?Tetheodus Cope, 1874
  • Holcodon Kramberger, 1885
  • Eurygnathus Davis, 1887 (preocc.) | synonyms_ref =

Enchodus (from el, 'spear' and el 'tooth') is an extinct genus of aulopiform ray-finned fish related to lancetfish and lizardfish. Species of Enchodus flourished during the Late Cretaceous, where they were a widespread component of marine ecosystems worldwide, and there is some evidence that they may have survived to the Paleocene or Eocene; however, this may just represent reworked Cretaceous material.

Description

Enchodus species were small to medium in size, with E. zinensis reaching 172.2 cm long. One of the genus' most notable attributes are the large "fangs" at the front of the upper and lower jaws and on the palatine bones, leading to its misleading nickname among fossil hunters and paleoichthyologists, "the saber-toothed herring". These fangs, along with a long sleek body and large eyes, suggest Enchodus was a predatory species.

E. petrosus, with standard length around 76.7 cm and sometimes over 1 m, is known from common remains coming from the Niobrara Chalk, the Mooreville Chalk Formation, the Pierre Shale, and other geological formations deposited within the Western Interior Seaway and the Mississippi Embayment. Large individuals of this species had fangs measuring over 6 cm in length, giving its skull an appearance somewhat reminiscent of modern deep-sea fishes, such as anglerfish and viperfish. Other species, such as E. parvus, were considerably smaller, measuring only some centimetres (a few inches) long.

Despite being a formidable predator, remains of Enchodus are commonly found among the stomach contents of larger predators, including sharks, other bony fish, mosasaurs, plesiosaurs and seabirds such as Baptornis advenus.

Distribution

Enchodus fossils have been found all over the world. In North America, Enchodus remains have been recovered from most US states with fossiliferous Late Cretaceous rocks, including Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee, Wyoming, Texas, California, North Carolina, and New Jersey. Fossils also have been found in the Aguja and El Doctor Formations of Mexico and the Ashville, Vermillion River and Dinosaur Park Formations, and Brown Bed Member of Canada. The taxon is also known from coeval strata in Mexico, South America (Tiupampan Santa Lucía Formation and Maastrichtian El Molino Formation of Bolivia, Paraíba, Pernambuco and Sergipe states of Brazil, as well as Argentina, Chile, and Peru), Africa (Egypt, Morocco, the Congo, Angola, Niger, and Equatorial Guinea), the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine and Jordan), Europe (England, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Germany, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Greece, Ukraine and Russia), India, and Japan. Potentially the latest Enchodus remains are known from the earliest Eocene of Barmer, India. However, it has also been suggested that all post-Cretaceous Enchodus records are just reworked material.

Taxonomy

Species of Enchodus are generally classified into two different clades, the North American and the Mediterranean. It has been proposed that this distinction is the result of several isolated events between the two populations over the Late Cretaceous. The earliest known species is E. zimapanensis from the late Albian or earliest Cenomanian of Mexico. Potentially earlier remains are known from the late Barremian/early Aptian of Brazil (Morro de Chaves Formation), but these specimens are too fragmentary to confidently assign to this genus.

Species

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Enchodus_gracilis.jpg" caption="Specimen of ''E. gracilis''"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Enchodus_petrosus_2.jpg" caption="Reconstructed school of ''E. petrosus''"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Enchodus_faujasi.jpg" caption="Specimen of ''E. faujasi''"] ::

Enchodus was a diverse, long-lived genus with many species known throughout its temporal and geographic range. The following valid species are known:

Phylogeny

|1={{clade |label1=Enchodus |1={{clade |1=E. marchesettii |2={{clade |1={{clade |1=Parenchodus |2=E. brevis |3=E. lewesiensis |2={{clade |1={{clade |1={{clade |1=E. gracilis |2={{clade |1=E. venator |2=E. shumardi |2={{clade |1=E. petrosus |2=E. zipapanensis |3=E. faujasi |4={{clade |1=E. gladiolus |2={{clade |1=E. tineidae |2=E. dirus

Gallery

File:Enchodus petrosus.png |Restoration of E. petrosus File:Enchodus lewesiensis.jpg|E. lewesiensis skull File:Enchodontidae - Enchodus elegans.JPG|Teeth of E. elegans from Khouribga File:Enchodontidae - Enchodus libycus.JPG|Teeth of E. libycus from Khouribga

References

References

  1. (1839). "An etymological and explanatory dictionary of the terms and language of geology". Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans.
  2. (2010). "A New Species of Enchodus (aulopiformes: Enchodontidae) from the Cretaceous (albian to Cenomanian) of Zimapán, Hidalgo, México". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
  3. (2005). "Lower vertebrates from the Late Palaeocene–Earliest Eocene Akli Formation, Giral Lignite Mine, Barmer District, western India". Current Science.
  4. (December 2010). "Estimating divergence times of lizardfishes and their allies (Euteleostei: Aulopiformes) and the timing of deep-sea adaptations". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.
  5. (November 2021). "Phylogenetic morphometrics, geometric morphometrics and the Mexican fossils to understand evolutionary trends of enchodontid fishes". Journal of South American Earth Sciences.
  6. Everhart, Mike. (2013). "''Enchodus'' sp. - The Sabre-Toothed Fish of the Cretaceous".
  7. (October 2023). "A large, new dercetid fish (Teleostei: Aulopiformes) from the Campanian Bearpaw Formation of Alberta, Canada". Cretaceous Research.
  8. Everhart, M.J.. (2017). "Oceans of Kansas, Second Edition: A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea (Life of the Past)". Indiana University Press.
  9. Kovalchuk, Oleksandr. (2022-03-31). "Records of Enchodus (Teleostei, Aulopiformes) from the Cenomanian of Ukraine in the light of European distribution of enchodontid fishes". Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie - Abhandlungen.
  10. "PBDB Taxon".
  11. Geology, British Museum (Natural History) Department of. (1901). "Catalogue of the Fossil Fishes in the British Museum (Natural History): Actinopterygian Teleostomi of the suborders Isospondyli (in part), Ostariophysi, Apodes, Percesoces, Hemibranchii, Acanthopterygii, and Anacanthini". order of the Trustees.
  12. Díaz-Cruz, Jesús Alberto. (2020-06-21). "A long snout enchodontid fish (Aulopiformes: Enchodontidae) from the Early Cretaceous deposits at the El Chango quarry, Chiapas, southeastern Mexico: A multi-approach study".
  13. Silva, Hilda M. A.. (2011). "Taxonomic review and phylogenetic analysis of Enchodontoidei (Teleostei: Aulopiformes)". Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências.
  14. [https://paleobiodb.org/classic/checkTaxonInfo?taxon_no=35564 ''Enchodus''] at [[Fossilworks]].org
  15. Cavin, Lionel. (2012-12-01). "Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) ray-finned fishes from the island of Gavdos, southern Greece, with comments on the evolutionary history of the aulopiform teleost Enchodus". Bulletin de la Société Géologique de France.
  16. Friedman, M.. (2012-01-01). "Ray-finned fishes (Osteichthyes, Actinopterygii) from the type Maastrichtian, the Netherlands and Belgium". Scripta Geologica. Special Issue.
  17. Gouiric Cavalli, Soledad. (2020). "The first Peruvian record of Enchodus (Osteichthyes, Aulopiformes, Enchodontidae) in the Upper Cretaceous Vivian Formation". Andean Geology.
  18. (2020-04-03). "UPPER CENOMANIAN FISHES FROM THE BONARELLI LEVEL (OAE2) OF NORTHEASTERN ITALY". Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia.
  19. "Enchodus libycus". Mundo Fosil.
  20. (2017). "A new species of the neopterygian fish ''Enchodus'' from the Duwi Formation, Campanian, Late Cretaceous, Western Desert, central Egypt". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.
  21. (2010). "A new species of Enchodus (Aulopiformes: Enchodontidae) from the Cretaceous (Albian to Cenomanian) of Zimapán, Hidalgo, México". Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

enchodontidaeprehistoric-ray-finned-fish-generacretaceous-bony-fishalbian-genus-first-appearancescenomanian-generaturonian-generaconiacian-generasantonian-generacampanian-generamaastrichtian-genus-extinctionscretaceous-fish-of-north-americalate-cretaceous-fish-of-south-americacretaceous-fish-of-europelate-cretaceous-fish-of-africalate-cretaceous-fish-of-asiafossils-of-the-united-statesdemopolis-chalkmooreville-chalkfossils-of-canadafossils-of-mexicotiupampanfossils-of-boliviasanta-lucía-formationfossils-of-brazilfossils-of-chilefossils-of-argentinafossils-of-perufossils-of-englandfossils-of-francefossils-of-spainfossils-of-the-netherlandsfossils-of-belgiumfossils-of-swedenfossils-of-germanyfossils-of-italyfossils-of-the-czech-republicfossils-of-sloveniafossils-of-greecefossils-of-ukrainefossils-of-russiafossils-of-egyptfossils-of-moroccofossils-of-nigerfossils-of-angolafossils-of-equatorial-guineafossils-of-the-republic-of-the-congofossils-of-saudi-arabiafossils-of-israelfossils-of-palestinefossils-of-syriafossils-of-lebanonfossils-of-jordanfossils-of-indiafossils-of-japanfossil-taxa-described-in-1835taxa-named-by-louis-agassiz