Rhadinichthys sp.

By oilshale (edited)

• November 8, 2016

Taxonomy

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopteri Cope 1871
Order: Palaeonisciformes Hay 1902
Family: Palaeoniscidae Vogt 1852
Genus: Rhadinichthys
Species: Rhadinichthys sp.

Geological Time Scale

Eon: Phanerozoic
Era: Paleozoic
Period: Carboniferous
Sub Period: None
Epoch: Early
International Age: Tournaisian

Stratigraphy

Horton Group
Albert Shale Formation
Frederick Brook Member

Provenance

Acquired by: Purchase/Trade

Dimensions

Length: 10 cm

Location

Hillsborough
Albert County
New Brunswick
Canada

• albert formation
• canada
• carboniferous
• hillsborough
• horton group
• rhadinichthys
• tff-oilshale-ch1271

Comments

Taxonomy from Fossilworks.org.

Rhadinichthys was an (elongate-)fusiform fish with an oblique suspensorium and large gape. The body scales are rhomboid, and usually denticulated posteriorly. There are two rows of teeth, an inner set of incurved conical teeth and an outer set of small teeth.
Jackson 1851 described several fishes from the Albert Formation of New Brunswick, including Rhadinichthys (Palaeoniscus) alberti, R. brownii and R. cairnsii.
Mickle 2017 remarks on p. 52:
"There are many problems with Jackson’s (1851a, b) original description. First, many of the features included in the description are common to lower actinopterygians (such as a single triangular dorsal fin and bifurcated caudal fin) and therefore uninformative. Other details, such as the color of the scales and absence of information on the gill plates or the vertebral column, do not add relevant information to the description."
and further on p. 54:
"Six species have been described from the Albert Formation, but the validity of the majority of these species has been questioned. The type specimens are either unknown, or poorly preserved. On top of this, the Albert Formation palaeoniscoids have been assigned to genera that are poorly understood, represented by poor type material, and are known to be paraphyletic."

References:
Jackson, C. T. (1851a) Report on the Albert Coal Mine, in: Reports on the geological relations, chemical analysis and microscopic examination of the Albert Coal Mining Company situated in Albert County, New Brunswick, New York, C. Vinten, 48 pp.
Jackson, C. T. (1851b) Description of five new species of fossil fishes, Boston Society of Natural History, 4, 138–142.
Woodward, A. S. (1891) Catalogue of the Fossil Fishes in the British Museum (Natural History). Part II. Catalogue of the Fossil Fishes in the British Museum (Natural History) 2.
Hay, O. P. (1902) Bibliography and Catalogue of the Fossil Vertebrata of North America. Bulletin of the United States Geological Survey 179:1-868.
Mickle, K. E. (2017) The lower actinopterygian fauna from the Lower Carboniferous Albert shale formation of New Brunswick, Canada – a review of previously described taxa and a description of a new genus and species, Foss. Rec., 20, 47–67, https://doi.org/10.5194/fr-20-47-2017.