Michael D. Gottfried (1989)
Перейти к источникуThe oldest known occurrence of an actinopterygian fish with preserved cryptic and disruptive pigmentation is a single specimen from a Permocarboniferous site in southeastern Kansas, U.S.A. It is a juvenile assignable to the Elonichthys species complex within the paraphyletic lower actinopterygian group “Palaeoniscoidea”;. The preserved pattern consists of dark dorsal mottlings and two lateral stripes that run the length of the body. These markings provide the earliest evidence in primitive fossil actinopterygians for (respectively) countershading and the use of disruptive markings to break up the body outline, two of the most common protective coloration strategies in Recent fishes. Anti‐predator protective markings therefore evolved in actinopterygians by at least the latter part of the Paleozoic (nearly 300 million years ago).