Acrolepis
| Acrolepis Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
| Fossil of Acrolepis sedgwicki | |
| Restoration | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | †Elonichthyiformes |
| Family: | †Acrolepididae |
| Genus: | †Acrolepis Agassiz, 1833 |
| Type species | |
| †Acrolepis sedgwicki Agassiz, 1833 | |
| Other species | |
|
See text | |
Acrolepis (Ancient Greek for "tip scale") is an extinct genus of prehistoric marine bony fish that lived from the Famennian stage of the Devonian to the early Triassic epoch. Some species from the Early Triassic of Tasmania are also ascribed to Acrolepis.
It is a large piscivorous predatory fish in the acrolepid family, which occupied an apex predator niche in its locale. A. gigas was estimated to have grown up to 1.25 metres (4.1 ft) in length.
A close relationship between the mostly Palaeozoic Acrolepidae and the Mesozoic Ptycholepiformes was proposed, but support from phylogenetic analyses is scarce. More recent studies place it in the order Elonichthyiformes.