Chimaera

Chimaeras are cartilaginous fishes in the order Chimaeriformes, known informally as ghost sharks, rat fish (not to be confused with the rattails), spookfish (not to be confused with the true spookfish of the family Opisthoproctidae), or rabbit fish (not to be confused with the true rabbitfishes of the family Siganidae).

At one time, a "diverse and abundant" group (based on the fossil record), their closest living relatives are sharks, though in evolutionary terms, they branched off from sharks nearly 400 million years ago and have remained isolated ever since. Today, they are largely confined to deep water.

Description and habits

Chimaeras live in temperate ocean floors down to 2,600 m (8,500 ft) deep, with few occurring at depths shallower than 200 m (660 ft). Exceptions include the members of the genus Callorhinchus, the rabbit fish and the spotted ratfish, which locally or periodically can be found at relatively shallow depths. Consequently, these are also among the few species from the Chimaera order kept in public aquaria. They have elongated, soft bodies, with a bulky head and a single gill-opening. They grow up to 150 cm (4.9 ft) in length, although this includes the lengthy tail found in some species. In many species, the snout is modified into an elongated sensory organ.

Sauropus (ichnogenus)

Sauropus is a dinosaur imprint. One imprint given this name may be from a sitting dinosaur, perhaps made by such a beast as Psittacosaurus. The authors of The Beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs: Faunal Change across the Triassic-Jurassic Boundary argue that the name should be abandoned, because the original type specimen (from a slab found in Middleton, Connecticut) is "so worn as to be indeterminate", a second specimen "shows no indication whatsoever of manus impressions" and is judged to be a mix of impressions from different animals, a third specimen is "a poor but typical Anomoepus sitting trackway", and "all other specimens cited as examples of Sauropus (E. Hitchcock, 1858) prove to be either very sloppy and indeterminate tracks ... or good specimens of Anomoepus".

See also

References

Chimera (mythology)

The Chimera (/kᵻˈmɪərə/ or /kaɪˈmɪərə/, also Chimaera (Chimæra); Greek: Χίμαιρα, Chímaira) was, according to Greek mythology, a monstrous fire-breathing hybrid creature of Lycia in Asia Minor, composed of the parts of more than one animal. It is usually depicted as a lion, with the head of a goat arising from its back, and a tail that might end with a snake's head, and was one of the offspring of Typhon and Echidna and a sibling of such monsters as Cerberus and the Lernaean Hydra.

The term chimera has come to describe any mythical or fictional animal with parts taken from various animals, or to describe anything composed of very disparate parts, or perceived as wildly imaginative, implausible, or dazzling.

Description

Homer's brief description in the Iliad is the earliest surviving literary reference: "a thing of immortal make, not human, lion-fronted and snake behind, a goat in the middle, and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire." Elsewhere in the Iliad, Homer attributes the rearing of Chimera to Amisodorus.Hesiod's Theogony follows the Homeric description: he makes the Chimera the issue of Echidna: "She was the mother of Chimaera who breathed raging fire, a creature fearful, great, swift-footed and strong, who had three heads, one of a grim-eyed lion; in her hinderpart, a dragon; and in her middle, a goat, breathing forth a fearful blast of blazing fire. Her did Pegasus and noble Bellerophon slay." The author of the Bibliotheca concurs: descriptions agree that she breathed fire. The Chimera is generally considered to have been female (see the quotation from Hesiod above) despite the mane adorning her head, the inclusion of a close mane often was depicted on lionesses, but the ears always were visible (that does not occur with depictions of male lions). Sighting the Chimera was an omen of storms, shipwrecks, and natural disasters (particularly volcanoes).