In Depth
Rhinconichthys was first named in 2010, from fossils that had been discovered in England. Then in 2016 a description of two new species, R. uyenoi from Japan and R. purgatoirensis from the USA were described, revealing to us that this fish genus potentially had a global distribution. Rhinconichthys is noted for the large hyomandibulae bones which would have allowed this to have had an incredibly wide gape, in turn allowing Rhinconichthys to filter large amounts of plankton from the sea water.
Rhinconichthys is related to the genera Bonnerichthys and Leedsichthys.
Further Reading
– 100-million-year dynasty of giant planktivorous bony fishes in the Mesozoic seas. - Science 327 (5968): 990–993. - Matt Friedman, Kenshu Shimada, Larry D. Martin, Michael J. Everhart, Jeff Liston, Anthony Maltese & Michael Triebold - 2010. - Highly specialized suspension-feeding bony fish Rhinconichthys (Actinopterygii: Pachycormiformes) from the mid-Cretaceous of the United States, England, and Japan. - Cretaceous Research 61: 71–85. - Bruce Schumacher, Kenshu Shimada, Jeff Liston, Anthony Maltese - 2016.
