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| Babelichthys Temporal range: Middle-Late Eocene | |
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| Part and counterpart slabs.
Scale bar = 20 mm | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Actinopterygii |
| Order: | Lampriformes |
| Family: | Lophotidae |
| Genus: | †Babelichthys Davesne 2017 |
| Type species | |
| Babelichthys olneyi Davesne 2017 | |
Babelichthys is an extinct genus of crestfish from Western Iran's Pabdeh Formation during the middle to late Eocene. One species is known: Babelichthys olneyi.
The single known specimen consists of a head and the front-most region of the dorsal fin, preserving the extremely elongated and enlarged first dorsal-fin ray.
It and the extant unicorn crestfish (Eumecichthys fiski) are each other's closest known relatives.
Etymology
The genus name Babelichthys means “Babel fish” in Greek, named after the teleost-like, ear-dwelling, polyglot extraterrestrial species from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, as a reference to the very peculiar, almost alien-like, appearance of the genus. The species name "olneyi" is named after John E. Olney for his work on the anatomy and ontogeny of Lampriformes.
References
- ^ Davesne, Donald (2017-06-28). "A fossil unicorn crestfish (Teleostei, Lampridiformes, Lophotidae) from the Eocene of Iran". PeerJ. 5: e3381. doi:10.7717/peerj.3381. ISSN 2167-8359. PMC 5493034. PMID 28674642.
| Taxon identifiers | |
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| Babelichthys | |