I am researching the history of the Macropetalichthyidae family and came across a reference to Charles Rochester Eastman's pivotal role in establishing it. According to Denison (1978), Eastman established Macropetalichthyidae in 1898. However, in my search, I have only found two of Eastman's articles from 1898 published in The American Naturalist: "Dentition of Devonian Ptyctodontidae" and "Some new points in Dinichthyid Osteology". Notably, in his 1897 article titled "On the characters of Macropetalichthys", Eastman did not formally establish the family Macropetalichthyidae.
I am reaching out to see if anyone in the community can provide information on the specific title of Eastman’s article where he established Macropetalichthyidae. Additionally, if you have access to the full text of this publication, sharing it would be immensely valuable for my research.
Thank you very much for any help or guidance you can offer.
Hi Pan!
Macropetalichthyidae is definitely used in
Eastman, C. R. 1902. Devonian fish fauna of Iowa. Bull. Geol. Soc. Amer. XIII
https://pubs.lib.uiowa.edu/igsar/article/1078/galley/110092/view/
On the other hand, like you pointed out, Macropetalichthyidae is attributed to
Eastman, Charles R. 1898. Some new points in Dinichthyid osteology. Amer. Naturalist xxxii pp. 747-768
This attribution is as early as 1902, in a bulletin from the US Geological survey:
https://pubs.usgs.gov/bul/0179/report.pdf
I can't see any use of the name Macropetalichthyidae in "Some new points in Dinichthyid osteology", but he does discuss the need to establish a new family to hold some forms that are sufficiently distinct from Coccosteus. I'm guessing this refers to Macropetalichthyidae, although it's not explicit...
There is one additional 1898 publication that I can't access:
Eastman, Charles R. 1898. On the occurrence of fossil fishes in the Devonian of Iowa. Iowa Geol. Surv. vii pp. 108-116
Maybe this only added more confusion, in which case I'm sorry!
Cheers
/daniel
Hej Daniel,
Thank you so much for your detailed response. The information about Macropetalichthyidae is very helpful. I appreciate the links you shared as well. It seems I still have some research to do.
Cheers
Pan