Falcatidae Explained

Falcatidae is a family of Paleozoic cartilaginous fish belonging to the order Symmoriiformes.^[1] Members of this family include Falcatus, a small fish from the Bear Gulch Limestone of Montana.^[2] The family first appeared around the start of the Carboniferous, and there is some evidence that they survived well into the early Cretaceous,^[3] though its putative Cretaceous members were also argued to be more likely neoselachians.^[4]

Genera

• Denaea ^[5]
• Falcatus^[2]
• Ozarcus?^[6]
• Stethacanthulus ^[5]
• Cosmoselachus
• Cretacladoides? – possible Early Cretaceous (Valanginian) member of the family^[7]

Notes and References

1. Coates . M. . Gess . R. . Finarelli . J. . Criswell . K. . Tietjen . K. . 2016 . A symmoriiform chondrichthyan braincase and the origin of chimaeroid fishes . Nature . 541. 7636 . 208–211. 10.1038/nature20806 . 28052054 . 4455946 .
2. 1985. The morphology of Falcatus falcatus (St. John and Worthen), a Mississippian stethacanthid chondrichthyan from the Bear Gulch Limestone of Montana . Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology . 5 . 1. 1–19 . 10.1080/02724634.1985.10011842 . Lund Richard.
3. Guillaume Guinot . Sylvain Adnet . Lionel Cavin . Henri Cappetta . 2013 . Cretaceous stem chondrichthyans survived the end-Permian mass extinction . Nature Communications . 4 . Article number: 2669 . 10.1038/ncomms3669 . 24169620. free .
4. Alexander O. Ivanov . New late Carboniferous chondrichthyans from the European Russia . 2022 . Bulletin of Geosciences . 97 . 2 . 10.3140/bull.geosci.1845 . free .
5. Ginter, M., Hampe., Duffin, C. 2010. Handbook of Paleoichthyology: Volume 3D- Paleozoic Elasmobranchii teeth. Verlag Dr. Freidrich Pfeil
6. Alan Pradel . John G. Maisey . Paul Tafforeau . Royal H. Mapes . Jon Mallatt . 2014 . A Palaeozoic shark with osteichthyan-like branchial arches . Nature . 509 . 7502 . 608–611 . 10.1038/nature13195 . 24739974. 3504437 .
7. Iris Feichtinger . Andrea Engelbrecht . Alexander Lukeneder . Jürgen Kriwet . 2018 . New chondrichthyans characterised by cladodont-like tooth morphologies from the Early Cretaceous of Austria, with remarks on the microstructural diversity of enameloid . Historical Biology: An International Journal of Paleobiology . 32 . 6 . 1–14. 10.1080/08912963.2018.1539971 . 92392461 .