Where: Queensland, Australia (23.8° S, 148.7° E: paleocoordinates 57.3° S, 138.1° E)

• coordinate stated in text

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Rangal Coal Measures Formation, Changhsingian (254.2 - 252.2 Ma)

• Uppermost division of Blackwater Group. The main fish horizon located in Utah's Blackwater opencast mine lay 6m above the Argo (or Main Lower) Seam, near the bottom of the Rangal Coal Measures. The similarity in the fish material recovered from the open-cast mine, and from the baked shales exposed at the surface on Clinker Hill (where both specimens of Bowengriphus perphlegis were found), suggests that they represent the same fauna.

• group of beds-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: lacustrine; lithified, red shale

Size class: macrofossils

Preservation: adpression, soft parts, replaced with other

Collected by A. Ritchie in 1969

• A. Ritchie, assisted by Mr Kingsley Gregg (Australian Museum) and Dr Anne Warren (Latrobe University), visited the Blackwater Mine site in late 1969. Many specimens of new genera and species of actinopterygian fish were recovered from large blocks of clinker awaiting crushing for road metal (Ritchie 1970). Queensland Museum staff later collected more fish material from the same site on Clinker Hill. One of the first finds was a new deep-bodied fish subsequently recognised as belonging to the Bobasatraniformes and described as Ebenaqua ritchiei Campbell and Duy Phuoc, 1983. While trimming a slab bearing the first specimen of Ebenaqua to be discovered, Ritchie observed an unusual smooth, circular organism. Closer examination revealed bilateral symmetry and distinct morphological features lying near the midline of the specimen.

Primary reference: K. S. W. Campbell and L. Duy Phuoc. 1983. A Late Permian actinopterygian fish from Australia. Palaeontology 26(1):33-70 [M. Clapham/M. Clapham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 117015: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Matthew Clapham on 14.09.2011

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)