A new Palaeocene fish from Saudi Arabia

Summary

A new genus and species of lower percoid fish, Parapercichthys arabis, from the Palaeocene of Saudi Arabia, is described from a single, somewhat distorted and incomplete syncranium. The taxon it represents shares some derived features with Plectroplites ambigua of Australia, and Percichthys trucha of South America. Both these species belong to the percichthyid division of the Serranidae, but insufficient information can be obtained from the fossil to consider it definitely a member of that division, or indeed a member of the family Serranidae (in which it is, however, tentatively placed as an indication of its general level of affinity with other percoids).