Paranogmius

Fossils of Paranogmius were first unearthed in 1912 by crews working for German paleontologist Ernst Stromer in the Gebel El Dist locality and Horizon 7P, an outcrop north of Ain Murin, in the Bahariya Oasis in western Egypt. The remains were found at the Gebel El Dist locality in a stretch of greyish sandy mudstone at the base of the outcrop. These mudstones derive from the Bahariya Formation, which contains strata dating to the Cenomanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period. These fossils, including two incomplete skulls and several vertebrae, were then taken to the Paläontologisches Museum München (Bavarian State Collection of Paleontology) and cataloged. The name Anogmius itself comes from the Greek ὄγμος (ógmos, "furrow, path"). The specific name doederleini honors the 80th birthday of German zoologist Ludwig Doederlein. All known fossils of Paranogmius were destroyed in the attack. Recent study and Concavotectum Since their destruction, no other fossils have been definitively assigned to the genus. Only images from Weiler's paper and a 1936 study by Stromer remain. until 2003, wherein Taverne reanalyzed figures of the material and concluded it was a basal plethodid.In 2008, Cavin and Forey described a new genus and species of tselfatiiform, Concavotectum moroccensis, from the Kem Kem Beds of southeastern Morocco. This species was named on the basis of a nearly complete skull that had been unearthed in an unknown locality by domestic fossil dealers. The Kem Kem Beds is a roughly contemporaneous geologic unit which also dates to the Cenomanian and has a similar faunal composition to the Bahariya Formation, with potentially the dinosaurs Deltadromeus and Spinosaurus, fish Mawsonia, and several elasmobranchs known from both sites. Their statuses are still debated, with studies like by German paleontologist Felix J. Augustin and colleagues (2023) and British researcher Jamale Ijouiher (2022) stating that Concavotectum is a likely synonym of Paranogmius. == Description ==

centrum Overall, Paranogmius is distinguished from other plethodids by its remarkable size, with estimates placing it at in total length with a long head, making it the largest known plethodid and among the largest fish known from the Bahariya Formation. Its skull roof was relatively flat, as in other tselfatiiformes, while the snout was greatly expanded and broad, like a catfish.The jaws of Paranogmius are also unique among plethodids as the teeth are arranged in patches instead of contiguous lines like in Bananogmius. Furthermore, the border of the dentary symphysis (where the two mandibulae meet) is raised and features a spur on its dorsal (top) face. The dermopalatine, also known as the chewing plate, is large, flat, and adorned with small teeth. Its vomer is T-shaped and expands broadly at its anterior margin, another autapomorphy of the genus. == Paleoecology ==

Weiler hypothesized that the close, "tightly pressed" association of the trunk vertebrae and quadrate from Paranogmius was a result of predation and scavenging. However, German paleontologist Werner Janensch stated that this association was the result of shallow marine waters and ocean waves. North Africa, during the Cenomanian stage of the Late Cretaceous, bordered the Tethys Sea, and was a mangrove-dominated coastal environment filled with vast tidal flats and waterways. While earlier, Albian-aged plethodids exclusively resided in Europe, the family expanded into the Tethys Sea during the Cenomanian-Turonian transition. sharks like Squalicorax and Cretolamna, and a variety of invertebrates. several indeterminate plesiosaurs, crocodylomorphs like the stomatosuchid Stomatosuchus and the eunotosuchian Libycosuchus,'' and an indeterminate pterosaur are also known from the formation. Dinosaurs are represented by the sauropods Aegyptosaurus, Paralititan, and an indeterminate titanosaur, the theropods Spinosaurus, Bahariasaurus'', an indeterminate abelisaurid, ==References==