Hypsiprisca sp.

By oilshale

• February 11

Taxonomy

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata Haeckel 1874
Class: Actinopteri Cope 1871
Order: Perciformes Stirton 1953
Family: incertae sedis
Genus: Hypsiprisca
Species: Hypsiprisca sp.

Geological Time Scale

Eon: Phanerozoic
Era: Cenozoic
Period: Paleogene
Sub Period: None
Epoch: Eocene
International Age: Ypresian

Stratigraphy

Green River Formation

Provenance

Acquired by: Purchase/Trade

Dimensions

Length: 50 mm

Location

Kemmerer
Wyoming
United States

• eocene
• green river fm
• hypsiprisca
• kemmerer
• priscacara
• wyoming
• ypresian

Comments

Juvenile Priscacara can be easily distinguished from juvenile Hypsacantha by their distinctly rounder body shape.

Grande distinguishes two forms of Hypsiprisca: Hypsiprisca hypsacantha (originally described by Cope in 1886 under the name Priscacara hypsacantha) and a second yet undescribed, closely related form Hypsiprisca sp.
H. sp. is more common than H. hypsacantha: H. sp. are mostly very small individuals less than 60mm long.

Quotation L. Grande (2013): "The second species that remains undescribed differs from H. hypsacantha in being more slender-bodied and having a more convex posterior tail fin margin (H. hypsacantha has a very slightly forked tail margin)."

References:
Whitlock, J. (2010). Phylogenetic relationships of the Eocene percomorph fishes †Priscacara and †Mioplosus Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology Volume 30 – Issue 4, pages 1037-1048.
Grande, L. T. (2013). The Lost World of Fossil Lake: Snapshots from Deep Time. University of Chicago Press. ISBN: 13: 978-0-226-92296-6.