Neopterygii
Neopterygii is a subclass of ray-finned fish (Actinopterygii). Neopterygii includes the Holostei and the Teleostei, of which the latter comprise the vast majority of extant fishes, and over half of all living vertebrate species. While living holosteans include only freshwater taxa, teleosts are diverse in both freshwater and marine environments. Many new species of teleosts are scientifically described each year.

This illustration was made by Citron You must credit this : Citron / CC-BY-SA-3.0 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- ActinopterygiiPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Time the record covers
At least 323 million years on record.
The record covers at least 323.6 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 326.9 Mya to 0 Mya.
3,963 occurrences of Neopterygii on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
3,963 occurrences- Carboniferousunder 1%
- Permianunder 1%
- Early Triassic3%
- Middle Triassic13%
- Late Triassic8%
- Early Jurassic5%
- Middle Jurassic2%
- Late Jurassic7%
- Early Cretaceous14%
- Late Cretaceous34%
- Paleocene2%
- Eocene6%
- Oligoceneunder 1%
- Miocene1%
- Plioceneunder 1%
- Pleistocene1%
- Holoceneunder 1%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
578 formations
- Hell Creek Formation · Montana Group241
- Besano Formation112
- Dinosaur Park Formation · Belly River Group105
- Willwood Formation72
- Ferris Formation65
- Besano Formation60
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The named rock units Neopterygii has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 554 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 798 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Neopterygii and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Neopterygii and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
3,569 taxa- Trionychidae76 sites
- Lepisosteus66 sites
- Lepisosteus occidentalis64 sites
- Myledaphus bipartitus63 sites
- Teleostei59 sites
- Ceratopsidae56 sites
- Scapherpeton tectum56 sites
- Crocodylia55 sites
- Anura49 sites
- Baenidae47 sites
- Chelydridae44 sites
- Adocus42 sites
- Champsosaurus42 sites
- Opisthotriton kayi42 sites
- Aves40 sites
- Paralbula casei40 sites
- Theropoda40 sites
- Amiidae37 sites
- Hadrosauridae36 sites
- Belonostomus longirostris34 sites
- Multituberculata34 sites
- Cyclurus fragosus33 sites
- Paronychodon33 sites
- Borealosuchus sternbergii29 sites
The Paleobiology Database records at least 1,051 sites for Neopterygii, and this reads 240 of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
1,177 references- Catalogue of the Fossil Fishes in the British Museum (Natural History), Part III158
- Vertebrate biostratigraphy of the Hell Creek Formation in southwestern North Dakota and northwestern South Dakota80
- Basal ray-finned fishes (Osteichthyes; Actinopterygii) from the Middle Triassic of Monte San Giorgio (Canton Tessin, Switzerland)78
- Fossil Vertebrate Collections77
- Vertebrate faunal changes through Lancian and Puercan time in southern Wyoming67
- Vertebrate microsite assemblages (exclusive of mammals) from the Foremost and Oldman Formations of the Judith River Group (Campanian) of southeastern Alberta: an illustrated guide55
- Paleoecology of an estuarine, incised-valley fill in the Dinosaur Park Formation (Judith River Group, Upper Cretaceous) of southern Alberta, Canada53
- New holostean fishes (Actinopterygii: Neopterygii) from the Middle Triassic of the Monte San Giorgio (Canton Ticino, Switzerland)52
- Stratigraphy and mammalian paleontology of the McCullough Peaks, northern Bighorn Basin, Wyoming: Implications for biochronology, basin development, and community reorganization across the Paleocene-Eocene boundary52
- Monographie der fossilien Fische aus den Lithographischen Schiefern Bayerns49
- Patterns of geographic variation in latest Cretaceous vertebrates: evidence from the turtle component38
- Paleontology of the Judith River Formation (Campanian) of Dinosaur National Park, Alberta, Canada: evidence from vertebrate microfossil locality36
Each of the 3,963 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 1,165 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Neopterygii
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- This illustration was made by Citron You must credit this : Citron / CC-BY-SA-3.0
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Neopterygii was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Neopterygii”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itActinopterygii through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Regan 1923)