A Portrait of a Young Fish: Redescription of Pteronisculus gunnari (Nielsen, 1942) from a juvenile specimen from the Early Triassic of East Greenland, with implications for ontogenetic development in early actinopterygians

Abstract

The Early-Middle Triassic actinopterygian genus Pteronisculus (White, 1933) is part of the Triassic Early Fish Fauna (TEFF), a cosmopolitan group of taxa that thrived in the aftermath of the end-Permian mass extinction. Pteronisculus is considered an important non-neopterygian outgroup taxon in many works dealing with the interrelationships of early crown actinopterygians, but the phylogenetic relationships of many of TEFF genera are debated, with the topology of the lineages giving rise to crown actinopterygians consequently unclear. This is despite exceptional, three-dimensionally preservation of an abundance of fossils associated with TEFF fishes. P. gunnari, from the Induan (Early Triassic) Kap Stosch Formation, East Greenland, is known in less detail than other species of the genus. Here, we use X-ray micro-computed tomography to comprehensively redescribe the three-dimensionally preserved holotype of P. gunnari, including a detailed description of the internal anatomy. The specimen shows morphological features previously undescribed for the genus, including paired premaxillae, medially-directed teeth on the palate, canals for the buccohypophysial canal and internal carotids piercing the parasphenoid, and numerous parotic toothplates. Scale covering is complete, but the braincase and palatoquadrate are ossified as multiple elements, indicating that the specimen was not fully mature and allowing new insights into ossification patterns and ontogenetic development of non-neopterygian actinopterygians. These new anatomical data enrich our understanding of both the morphological complexity and the interrelationships of actinopterygians from the Triassic Early Fish Fauna.