Thoracopterus: a Triassic flying fish sister to giant Cretaceous Xiphactinus

Convergent with today’s flying fish,
Thoracopterus magnificus (Bronn 1858; Tintori and Sassi 1992; Late Triassic; Figs. 1, 2) is a derived acanthodian spiny shark with huge pectoral ray-fins likely used for short gliding attempts from the sea surface. Here speedy Thoracopterus nests in the large reptile tree (LRT, 1498 taxa) alongside giant Xiphactinus (Fig. 3), a Cretaceous predator, and informs the identity of several skull bones, now corrected.

Thoracopterus also serves as a transitional taxon
demonstrating the big-eyed skull of a spiny shark together with the multi-ray fin of tradtional ray-fin fish, like Xiphactinus, something the LRT demonstrated earlier here.

Apologies for earlier mistakes on Xiphactinus,
here (Fig. 3) corrected. As stated many times earlier, I know nothing about a taxon until it comes up and Xiphactinus was an early attempt, now informed by Thoracopterus. Thankfully this was never published on permanent paper. Online presentations are easier to correct. Contra the critics, I do make corrections when warranted, case in point.

You’ll note, despite the many corrections,
the nesting of Xiphactinus did not change in the LRT, demonstrating the strength of the character set and the ability of any taxon to get more or less correctly nested despite intrinsic errors. Some critics think a few or several errors blackwash an entire study. Here’s hard evidence that invalidates that claim. The biggest problem with competing cladograms continues to be taxon exclusion, a point that continues to be ignored out there. Just add one a day. That’s what I do, more or less. Pretty soon, you’ll have 1500, a number that we’ll reach later this week.

References
Bronn HG 1858.  Beiträge zur triassischen Fauna und Flora der bituminösen Schiefer von Raibl. Neues Jahrbuch für Mineralogie, Geologie udn Paläontologie 1:1–32.
Egerton P de MG 1860. Report of the British Association for Science for 1859.
Transactions of the Sections. 116.
Leidy J 1870. [Remarks on ichthyodorulites and on certain fossil Mammalia]. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia 22:12–13.
Miller RF, Cloutier R and Turner S 2003. The oldest articulated chondrichthyan from the Early Devonian period. Nature 435:501–504.
Newman M and Davidson B 2010. Early Devonian fish from the Midland Valley of Scotland. National Palaentological Congress London.14–15.
Tintori A and Sassi D 1992. Thoracopterus Bronn (Osteichthyes: Actinopterygii): A Gliding Fish from the Upper Triassic of Europe. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. 12 (3): 265–283.
Woodward AS 1892. On the Lower Devonian fish-fauna of Campbellton, New Brunswick. Geol. Mag. 9, 1–6.

wiki/Acanthodii
wiki/Xiphactinus
wiki/Doliodus
wiki/Thoracopterus