Dinichthys (from , 'terrible' and 'fish') is an extinct monospecific genus of large marine arthrodire placoderm from the Late Devonian (Famennian stage) measuring around long.
Classification History
Dinichthys was originally described in 1868 by John Newberry on the basis of an incomplete skull roof and mandibles (
holotype AMNH 81). Subsequently, many unrelated large arthrodires were originally classified together within this genus, including species now assigned to
Dunkleosteus,
Eastmanosteus, and
Titanichthys. Notably, the
type species of
Dunkleosteus was originally described as
Dinichthys terrelli by Newberry in 1873, and was later separated into
Dunkleosteus by Jean-Pierre Lehman in 1956.
Dunkleosteus was still thought to be closely related to
Dinichthys, and they were grouped together in the family
Dinichthyidae. However, in the 2010 Carr & Hlavin
phylogenetic study,
Dunkleosteus and
Dinichthys were found to belong to two separate
. Carr & Hlavin resurrected the family
Dunkleosteidae and placed
Dunkleosteus,
Eastmanosteus, and a few other genera from Dinichthyidae within it.
Dinichthyidae, in turn, is left a
Monotypic taxon family
and dismissed as a family grouping,
and the genus
Dinichthys is now considered a
monotypic genus, containing only the
type species,
D. herzeri.
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Phylogeny
Dinichthys is a member of the clade Aspinothoracidi, which belongs to the clade Pachyosteomorphi, one of the two major clades within Eubrachythoraci. The cladogram below shows the phylogeny of Dinichthys:
