Жоғалған Caturus балығының туысы

Extinct genus of fishes

Caturus (from κατω , 'down' and οὐρά 'tail') is an extinct genus of predatory marine fishes in the family Caturidae in the order Amiiformes, related to modern bowfin. It has been suggested that the genus is non monophyletic with respect to other caturid genera. Fossils of this genus range from 200 to 109 mya (Early Jurassic to Early Cretaceous), though potential records are known from the Late Triassic.

Caturus has a confused taxonomic history. The genus was originally described by Louis Agassiz for two fossil fish (U. pachyurus and U. gracilis) that had been previously described in the genus Uraeus, which was found to already be preoccupied by a genus of cobra of the same name (now classified as a subgenus within Naja). However, neither of these species were properly described with an associated illustration or proper description, and they remain nomen dubia; the specimen of U. pachyurus is lost, and the specimen of Caturus gracilis is too poorly preserved to assign a specific taxon. Later, the species C. furcatus, initially described by Agassiz within Pachycormus, was designated as the type species of the genus by Woodward, but this was incorrect as the type species of a genus must be one of the species originally described for it. These inconsistencies make both Caturus and Pachycormus (which was initially described with Uraeus gracilis as one of its species) taxonomically unstable genera, necessitating a petition to the Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature to retain C. furcatus as the type species of Caturus.

When restricted to only definitive species, Caturus is present in the Jurassic of the United Kingdom, Germany, the United States, and Cuba, ranging into the earliest Cretaceous of the United Kingdom and Spain. Indeterminate remains are also known within this range from the Jurassic of France and Portugal, in addition to a potential species from Austria.