Redfieldiiformes
Redfieldiiformes is an extinct order of ray-finned fish (actinopterygians) which lived from the Early Triassic to Early Jurassic. Redfieldiiforms were fairly typical Triassic fish in overall anatomy. They had a fusiform body shape with thick, ganoine-covered scales. The dorsal and anal fins were large, positioned opposite from each other, and shifted back, close to the tail. The caudal fin was hemiheterocercal, with the vertebral column and body scales extending into an upper lobe equal in size and shape to the lower lobe. They also had several characteristic skeletal traits, such as a hatchet-shaped preopercle, a series of fulcra fringing the fins, a reduced number of branchiostegal rays, and a snout ornamented with tubercles.

Charles Lyell ( On the Geological Age of the Coal-Fields of Eastern Virginia as determined by Fossil Remains ) · Public Domain · 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 4.4 million years on record.
The record covers at least 241.464 Mya to 237 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 247 Mya to 201.4 Mya.
2 occurrences of Redfieldiiformes on record, most of them in the Middle Triassic. 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
2 occurrencesThese 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
1 formation
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The named rock units Redfieldiiformes has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Redfieldiiformes and its relatives
Middle TriassicWhere Redfieldiiformes and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.
Found in the same rock
7 taxa- Almasauridae1 site
- Arganodus arganensis1 site
- Arganodus atlantis1 site
- Calaichthys tehul1 site
- Perleidiformes1 site
- Phyllopodes indet.1 site
- Reptilia1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Redfieldiiformes, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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
2 references- Increasing the fish diversity of the Triassic faunas of Gondwana: a new Redfieldiiforme (Actinopterygii) from the Middle Triassic of Argentina and its palaeobiogeographical implications1
- Principaux caracteres d'un genre de Dicynodonte du Trias marocain. [Principal characteristics of a dicynodont genus from the Moroccan Triassic]1
Each of the 2 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. 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 Redfieldiiformes
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Charles Lyell ( On the Geological Age of the Coal-Fields of Eastern Virginia as determined by Fossil Remains )
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Redfieldiiformes was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- 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 Middle TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Berg 1940