Dipterus

Fossil of Dipterus valenciennesi at the Museum of Natural History, Berlin

• Europe (Scotland )
• North America
• North Asia
• Australia

Dipterus ( Syn: Catopterus, Eoctenodus, Pardipterus, Polyphractus ) is an extinct genus of lungfish ( Dipnoi ) from the Middle and Upper Devonian. Dipterus was the first lungfish, which was scientifically described, some years before the discovery and description of recent South American lungfish in 1837.

Features

Dipterus were small fish with a slender, covered with roundish, imbricated scales body. The head was narrow, relatively large eyes, muzzle pointed. The skull had a complicated arrangement of small bones around the eyes and to the jaws. The jaw edges were toothless. As with later lungfish were a pair of large, coated with highly mineralized dentin chewing plates in the mid- palate. They probably served as crushing apparatus for hard-shelled food. Before that, there were smaller tooth-like structures. Dipterus is the oldest lungfish, had the cranial ribs, which suggests that he has already breathed air.

Both dorsal fins sat far back, just before the tail fin. The first dorsal fin was smaller than the second. Both were seated on a fleshy stalk. The caudal fin was heterocercal, right in front of her sat down a little anal fin. Abdominal and pectoral fins were narrow, elongated and pointed at the end. Its long central part was muscular and was supported by symmetrically arranged bones.

Dipterus lived in fresh water and fed on meat eating ( carnivorous ).