Phylogenetic Diversity of Late Cretaceous Marine Fishes

The Late Cretaceous epoch witnessed an exceptional radiation of marine fishes, encompassing both cartilaginous and bony lineages that laid the foundation for much of today’s oceanic vertebrate diversity. During the Cenomanian to Maastrichtian interval, actinopterygians diversified into multiple clades, including early teleosts, halecomorphs and primitive neopterygians, while chondrichthyans such as lamniform sharks and holocephalans maintained key predatory roles. Cladistic analyses of anatomical characters—ranging from cranial suspensions to scale microstructure—have refined our understanding of interrelationships among these groups, revealing repeated convergences in body shape and feeding apparatus linked to pelagic versus nearshore habitats. Phylogenetic diversity metrics, combining lineage richness with evolutionary distinctiveness, highlight biogeographic patterns across the Tethyan, Boreal and Western Interior Seaway provinces. This global framework informs models of morphological disparity, rates of character evolution and responses to environmental drivers, including sea-level fluctuations and the mass extinction at the Cretaceous-Palaeogene boundary. Insights from Late Cretaceous fish assemblages thus provide a critical temporal calibration for molecular clocks and underpin conservation strategies by illuminating deep-time resilience and vulnerability in marine ecosystems.

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Phylogenetic Diversity of Late Cretaceous Marine Fishes publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in phylogenetic diversity of late cretaceous marine fishes across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Phylogenetic diversity: A measure combining the number of lineages and their evolutionary distinctiveness within a clade or assemblage.

Actinopterygian: A member of the bony fish subclass characterised by fin rays (lepidotrichia) and comprising modern teleosts and their ancestors.

Chondrichthyan: A member of the cartilaginous fishes, including sharks, rays and chimaeras, with skeletons predominantly composed of cartilage.

Cenomanian: The earliest age of the Late Cretaceous, spanning approximately 100.5–93.9 million years ago.

Maastrichtian: The final age of the Late Cretaceous, spanning approximately 72.1–66.0 million years ago.

References

1. The first articulated skeletons of enigmatic Late Cretaceous billfish-like actinopterygians. Royal Society Open Science (2023).
2. Microvertebrate faunal assemblages of the Favel Formation (late Cenomanian-middle Turonian) of Manitoba, Canada. PeerJ (2023).
3. A fossil assemblage from the mid–late Maastrichtian of Gavdos Island, Greece, provides insights into the pre-extinction pelagic ichthyofaunas of the Tethys. PLOS ONE (2022).