According to a recent report in the *Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology*, a research team led by Xu Guanghui from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, discovered a new species of conical fish dating back 240 million years in Luoping, Yunnan Province, my country. Named *Elegant Beltfish*, it has been classified into the order Archichthyes and the family Lashanidae. *Elegant Beltfish* represents one of the earliest fossil records of conical fish in the world, and its discovery provides new fossil evidence for understanding the early evolution of holoosteans and the origin of conical fishes.
According to reports, genus *Neopterygii* includes the orders Archichthyes, Hemicerchiformes, and Osteichthyes. The gar, living in freshwater environments of Central and North America and Cuba, is a extant representative of the Osteichthyes order of *Neopterygii*, considered a living fossil, and provides important information for the study of neopterygii. Neopterygii is the largest evolutionary lineage of the subclass Actinopterygii, distributed in almost all aquatic environments on Earth. Except for polypterygians and sturgeons, all other extant Actinopterygii belong to the neopterygii category. In recent years, Xu Guanghui's research team has conducted fieldwork in the border region of Yunnan and Guizhou provinces, obtaining a batch of well-preserved neopterygii fossil specimens, focusing on the origin and early radiation of neopterygii. Based on four exquisitely preserved fish fossils collected from the Middle Triassic Anisian marine strata in Luoping, Yunnan, Xu Guanghui's team named a new genus and species of *Neopterygii*: *Elegant Beltfish*. The genus name *Elegant Beltfish* originates from the Jade Belt Lake at the foot of Baila Mountain in Luoping. "Baila Mountain Jade Belt" is one of the famous scenic spots recorded by Xu Xiake, the great Ming Dynasty traveler and geographer, during his travels in Luoping.
The discovery of *Gymnodon fasciatus* is another important finding of neopterygian fishes in the Middle Triassic Luoping Biota. The Luoping Biota of the Middle Triassic in Yunnan is one of the world's most biodiverse Triassic marine fossil deposits, possessing high scientific value in studying the recovery of marine ecosystems after the end-Permian mass extinction. The archichthyes fish discovered in the Luoping Biota represent the earliest fossil record of conical fishes in the world, including the previously discovered *Grand Archichthys* and *Lashanichthys suisi*. *Lashanichthys suisi* was previously classified under the genus *Saint George* from the Late Middle Triassic in Europe, but new research indicates it is more closely related to *Gymnodon fasciatus* and other archichthyes. Chronostratigraphic studies show that *Saint George* from Europe is four million years later than the *Lashanichthys* family of archichthyes in the Luoping Biota, while phylogenetic studies show that *Saint George* possesses more advanced conical fish characteristics than archichthyes. In recent years, the successive discoveries of multiple archichthyes genera and species in the Triassic strata of Yunnan and Guizhou indicate that the early differentiation of conical fishes was much faster than previously thought.
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Key Project of Frontier Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Project on Paleontological Fossil Excavation and Repair.
Figure 1: A beautiful holotype specimen of the white ribbonfish (Photo provided by Xu Guanghui)
Figure 2 shows another complete specimen of the beautiful white ribbonfish (photo provided by Xu Guanghui).
Figure 3 shows a beautiful reconstruction of the jade ribbonfish (provided by Xu Guanghui).
