Overview
- The research team published their Science Advances paper on Thursday documenting Qreiya 3 as a Danian Lagerstätte dated to 62.2 million years ago that contains hundreds of fossil fish skeletons.
- Most specimens at Qreiya 3 are percomorphs, a group that now dominates oceans, and the site includes the earliest skeletal records of groups related to tunas, snake mackerels, moonfishes, jacks, and pipefishes.
- Several predatory fish groups common in Cretaceous seas are absent from the assemblage, which the authors interpret as evidence those older lineages died out at or near the K–Pg extinction rather than simply being missing from the fossil record.
- Geology and taphonomy show an offshore paleodepth of about 150–250 meters, likely low-oxygen bottom waters, and a link to the Latest Danian Event, conditions that favored exceptional preservation and shaped ecological signals.
- The discovery helps fill Patterson’s Gap in the early Paleogene record, suggests a possible tropical origin for early modern fish faunas, and will prompt more fieldwork and specimen study that could reshape where and how paleontologists search for early Cenozoic fossils.