Holocene leedsicthys by OlivierDudot on DeviantArt (original) (raw)

An entry for the Spec Evo community challenge/contest of Hyrotrioskjan/Joschua Knüppe 's #AtlantisBestiary3 project !

My 18th one !

For this entry, I choose to made another native species that descend from the surviving species from Phase 2.

This time, some species of small fish who descend both from the Miocene Voropolyodon (see « Atlantis Phase 2 » Post, 1st April 2023, third, tenth and twelve box picture from the top of the chart. Link : www.deviantart.com/hyrotrioskj…).

The results are the following species :

* The Holocene Leedsichthys ;

On Atlantis, there several species of very small filter-feeders fish who lurk in the waters of the central great lake, the larges surrounding rivers around this areas and the ponds of the subtropical forest and swamps/mangroves areas just next to it.

Theses species descend from the the Miocene Voropolyodon, but their taxonomy is in reality unknown.
Whatever the true ancestry, these species are successfull animals and important representatives of the casts fauna in the ecosystems in which they live.

If their behaviors and lifestyle is absolutely not different at all from their ancestors or normals Paddlefish, they are, at the oppossite of these latters and of all the others possibles members of their order, incredibly colored species, with stricking and diverses colors, in addition of numerous diverse shapes that their fins take.
These two traits are due to a uncommon radiation that occured very recently in geological times, likely during the Pliocene.

They by the way survived the end Miocene turnover, the Pliocene and the Younfer Dryas whithout real suffering, thank to their very small sizes which allow them to not suffer from the decrease and reduction of the available water and their food needs.