Herreraichthys is an extinct genus of gar from the Late Cretaceous of Mexico. It contains a single species, H. coahuilaensis. The genus name honors the famous Mexican scientist Alfonso L. Herrera.[1]
| Herreraichthys Temporal range:
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|---|---|
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Clade: | Ginglymodi |
| Order: | Lepisosteiformes |
| Family: | Lepisosteidae |
| Tribe: | Lepisosteini |
| Genus: | †Herreraichthys Alvarado-Ortega et al., 2016 |
| Species: | †H. coahuilaensis
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| Binomial name | |
| †Herreraichthys coahuilaensis Alvarado-Ortega, Brito, Porras-Múzquiz & Mújica-Monroy, 2016
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It is known from Santonian-aged sediments from the "Los Temporales" quarry in Coahuila. It is a long-snouted fish that appears to be more closely related to extant gar (Atractosteus and Lepisosteus) than to other fossil gar, and it is thus placed in the same tribe (Lepisosteini) as extant gar. Its occurrence in marine strata suggests that it may have been a fully marine species, similar to what is thought of ancestral gars and in contrast to extant gar, which are found in freshwater habitats. However, it is also possible that as with the modern alligator gar, it could temporarily survive in the sea.[1][2]
References edit
- ^ a b Alvarado-Ortega, Jesús; Brito, Paulo M.; Porras-Múzquiz, Héctor Gerardo; Mújica-Monroy, Irene Heidi (2016-01-01). "A Late Cretaceous marine long snout "pejelagarto" fish (Lepisosteidae, Lepisosteini) from Múzquiz, Coahuila, northeastern Mexico". Cretaceous Research. 57: 19–28. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2015.07.009. ISSN 0195-6671.
- ^ Brownstein, Chase Doran; Yang, Liandong; Friedman, Matt; Near, Thomas J. (20 December 2022). "Phylogenomics of the Ancient and Species-Depauperate Gars Tracks 150 Million Years of Continental Fragmentation in the Northern Hemisphere". Systematic Biology. 72 (1): 213–227. doi:10.1093/sysbio/syac080. PMID 36537110. Retrieved 2023-06-05.