HOME | DD

Description
The Upper Cretaceous beryciform dinopterygid Aipichthys velifer, in a school of its own kind.

I know a reasonable amount on this fish, mainly because it was part of a geology project I did last semester. We (the class), took a field trip to the fossil beds of Hjoula and excavated away. Our assignment was to take around three specimens, identify them (at home, of course), and write a report on them. I landed Aipichthys velifer, the prawn Carpopenaeus callirostris, and the bizarre congrid eel Enchelion montium.

I did a small painting to accompany the report; I recently dug it up and fiddled around with it in photoshop for the result you see above. I couldn't choose whether to classify as it as "traditional" or "digital", but, since I started from a painted base, I went with "traditional".

As you can see, Aipichthys was a deep-bodied, laterally flattened fish. I imagine it as a colorful reef-dweller, moving between corals, algae, rocks, whatnot. The color scheme is based, more or less, on its closest modern-day relatives - the squirrelfish.

Note that the main fish's dorsal fin is clipped - this reflects the absence of the fin on my fossil.

Description
The Upper Cretaceous beryciform dinopterygid Aipichthys velifer, in a school of its own kind.

I know a reasonable amount on this fish, mainly because it was part of a geology project I did last semester. We (the class), took a field trip to the fossil beds of Hjoula and excavated away. Our assignment was to take around three specimens, identify them (at home, of course), and write a report on them. I landed Aipichthys velifer, the prawn Carpopenaeus callirostris, and the bizarre congrid eel Enchelion montium.

I did a small painting to accompany the report; I recently dug it up and fiddled around with it in photoshop for the result you see above. I couldn't choose whether to classify as it as "traditional" or "digital", but, since I started from a painted base, I went with "traditional".

As you can see, Aipichthys was a deep-bodied, laterally flattened fish. I imagine it as a colorful reef-dweller, moving between corals, algae, rocks, whatnot. The color scheme is based, more or less, on its closest modern-day relatives - the squirrelfish.

Note that the main fish's dorsal fin is clipped - this reflects the absence of the fin on my fossil.