Belantsea is a belantseid petalotodontiform cartilaginous fish from the Mississippian of the United States of America. It was named in 1989 by Richard Lund. It was one of the most bizzare holocephalans to exist, due to its body plan and dentition.
Physiology[]
Belantsea was a highly distinctive holocephalan, with a laterally flattened, leaf-shaped body, huge, spineless dorsal fins, large, lobe-like pectoral fins, rounded pelvic fins, a small tail with a rounded, two-lobed caudal fin, and a short head with large eyes and a proportionally small mouth. Its body would have been covered in scaly skin.
Diet[]
Belantsea's diet remains unknown, although due to its few short, bluntly serrated teeth and the enlarged scales around its mouth, it is possible that it either grazed algae off rocks or fed on sessile, hard-shelled animals like brachiopods, sponges, and echinoderms.[1]
Ecology[]
So far, all we know about Belantsea is that it would have filled an ecospace similar to that of a triggerfish, being a bottom-dwelling fish that likely lived in tight spaces; its laterally flattened body, huge fins, and small, rounded caudal fin provided for increased agility instead of stable cruising speed,[1] while its short, blunt teeth were likely used for either scraping off algae or crushing hard-shelled vertebrates. [2]
References[]
- Lund, R. (1989). New Petalodonts (Chondrichthyes) from the Upper Mississippian Bear Gulch Limestone (Namurian E₂b) of Montana. In Source: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (Vol. 9, Issue 3).
- Lund, R., Greenfest-Allen, E., & Grogan, E. D. (2015). Ecomorphology of the Mississippian fishes of the Bear Gulch Limestone (Heath formation, Montana, USA). Environmental Biology of Fishes, 98(2), 739–754. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10641-014-0308-x