Caturidae

Caturidae is an extinct family of predatory amiiform ray-finned fish, being the sister-group to the extant family Amiidae. Though their body form is very different than the modern bowfin, a number of features in the skull point towards a close relationship between the groups. Members of the family were generally larger fish that lived within more coastal marine environments along with freshwater environments near the coast. In these environments, caturids would have fed on a variety of prey items, hunting them similarly to fish like gars and barracudas. The earliest members of the family appeared in the early Late Triassic, reaching an apex of diversity during the Jurassic with the youngest records of the group date to the Early Cretaceous.