Leedsichthys

Reconstructed image life Leedsichthys problematicus

Europe (England, Germany, France)

Leedsichthys problematicus is an extinct bony fish whose fossils have been found in about 165 to 155 million years old marine sediments from the middle and upper Jurassic. The name " Leedsichthys " means " Leeds ' fish," according to the fossil collector Alfred Leeds, in 1889 discovered the first fossils near Peterborough in England. The epithet " problematicus " got the taxon, because the determination of the size proved to be so difficult.

Features

Leedsichthys one of the Pachycormidae, extinct ray-finned fishes with a partially ossified skeleton. Especially the spine consisted mostly of cartilage, which is not preserved fossil. Since the remains found are strong decay and no complete copy has been found to determine the exact length of the animal is difficult. Leedsichthys problematicus the fish with the largest body length could have been in the earth's history; older estimates amount to 27.6 meters, more recent studies assume that the fish with an age of 20 years reached a length of 9 meters and could have been at the age of 38 years, 16.5 meters long. The pectoral fin is said to be from 2.30 to 3 meters long, a single part of the tail fin homocerken 1.80 to 2 meters high. By comparison, the largest extant fish is the whale shark, the longest measured specimen was 13.7 meters long.

Way of life

As the whale shark feeding on Leedsichthys problematicus of plankton that has been filtered using a filtering apparatus in the mouth and in the gills from the water absorbed.

System

Leedsichthys problematicus belongs to a monophyletic clade of large mariner, of filtering plankton feeders within the extinct Pachycormidae that lived from the Middle Jurassic to the Upper Cretaceous. The Pachycormidae belong to the genuine bony fish ( Teleostei ).