Hyneria
Name: Hyneria
(from Hyner)..
Phonetic: Hy-ne-ree-ah.
Named By: Keith S. Thomson - 1968.
Classification: Chordata, Vertebrata,
Sarcopterygii, Tetrapodomorpha, Osteolepiformes,
Tristichopteridae.
Species: H. lindae (type).
Type: Carnivore/Piscivore.
Size: Most individuals up to 2.5 to 3.7 meters long.
Known locations: USA, Pennsylvania, Red Hill
Shale.
Time period: Famennian of the Devonian.
Fossil representation: Several specimens of partial
remains.
As
a lobe finned fish, Hyneria would have looked
like a larger
version of Eusthenopteron.
It had powerful fins, but the
popularised image of Hyneria using them to crawl
across land is to date
only speculation. It’s likely that they would have been of more use
while navigating shallow waters and submerged obstacles. In terms of
being a predator, Hyneria would have been
predators of other fish
including sharks
as well as temnospondyl amphibians.
The
size of Hyneria has been open to a lot of debate
over the years. In
the 2005 series Walking with Monsters Hyneria
was portrayed as a
five meter long fish, though where this size estimate came from is
uncertain, and is also questionable given the that the Walking
With... series of shows tend to have a history of
overestimating
the size of prehistoric creatures (such as the portrayal of the
pliosaur
Liopleurodon
being twenty-five meters long when the largest
specimen is only seven, or the pterosaur
Ornithocheirus
presented
with a twelve meter wingspan when fossils indicate a six meter
wingspan). The actual fossils of individual Hyneria
actually point
to a more modest size of between two and four meters long. If you
have come to this page expecting to find a really large lobe-finned
fish,
then you should check out the genus Rhizodus,
a giant six to seven
meter long predator.
More information on the above fish can be found on their corresponding pages; Ceratodus, Chinlea, Dipnorhynchus, Dipterus, Eusthenopteron, Gooloogongia, Griphognathus, Gyroptychius, Holoptychius, Hyneria, Macropoma, Mandageria, Osteolepis, Panderichthys, Rhizodus, Strunius, Tiktaalik (upper estimate).
Further reading
- A new Devonian fish (Crossopterygii: Rhipidistia) considered
in relation to the origin of the Amphibia - Keith S. Thompson
- 1968.
- New data on Hyneria lindae (Sarcopterygii,
Tristichopteridae) from
the Late Devonian of Pennsylvania, USA. - Journal of Vertebrate
Paleontology. 27 (S3). - E. B. Daeschler & N. H. Shubin - 2007.
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