Belantsea montana
Encyclopedia
Belantsea montana was a cartilaginous fish that lived during the Lower Carboniferous
, about 350 million years ago. Its fossils are found in the Bear Gulch Limestone
lagerstätte
. Its body was leaf-shaped, with muscular fins and a small tail. Such a bodyplan would allow for great maneuverability, but at the cost of speedy cruising. Its few, large, triangular teeth formed a beak-like arrangement that allowed it to graze bryozoans, sponges, crinoids and other encrusting animals.
B. montana is the best known member of the order
Petalodontiformes
.
Carboniferous
The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that extends from the end of the Devonian Period, about 359.2 ± 2.5 Mya , to the beginning of the Permian Period, about 299.0 ± 0.8 Mya . The name is derived from the Latin word for coal, carbo. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing"...
, about 350 million years ago. Its fossils are found in the Bear Gulch Limestone
Bear Gulch Limestone
The Bear Gulch Limestone in Montana is a fossiliferous lagerstätte, a limestone layer laid down in the Mississippian epoch of the Carboniferous period, about 318 mya. This lens of limestone was laid down in a surrounding matrix that indicates a landscape of mudflats and braided channels in fresh...
lagerstätte
Lagerstätte
A Lagerstätte is a sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossil richness or completeness.Palaeontologists distinguish two kinds....
. Its body was leaf-shaped, with muscular fins and a small tail. Such a bodyplan would allow for great maneuverability, but at the cost of speedy cruising. Its few, large, triangular teeth formed a beak-like arrangement that allowed it to graze bryozoans, sponges, crinoids and other encrusting animals.
B. montana is the best known member of the order
Order (biology)
In scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...
Petalodontiformes
Petalodontiformes
Order Petalodontiformes is a group of extinct marine cartilaginous fish related to modern day chimaera found in what is now the United States of America and Europe. With a very few exceptions, they are known entirely from teeth...
.