Sparnodus [SEP] parent taxon
Sparnodus
Sparnodus is an extinct genus of prehistoric perciform fish in the family Sparidae. Species of this genus were nektonic carnivore. These fishes lived in the Cenozoic Era, in Oligocene and Paleocene (55.8 to 23.03 Ma).
Species.
- "Sparnodus altivelis"
- "Sparnodus elongatus"
- "Sparnodus macrophthalmus"
- "Sparnodus micracanthus"
- "Sparnodus ovalis"
- "Sparnodus vulgaris"
Description.
These medium sized fishes usually could reach a length of . They had a
Taxon in disguise
In bacteriology, a taxon in disguise is a species, genus or higher unit of biological classification whose evolutionary history reveals has evolved from another unit of similar or lower rank, making the parent unit paraphyletic. This happens when rapid evolution makes a new species appear radically different from the ancestral group, so that it is not (initially) recognised as belonging to the parent phylogenetic group, leaving the latter an evolutionary grade.
While the term is from bacteriology, parallel examples are found throughout the tree of