Guiyu oneiros
species of fish (fossil)
Guiyu oneiros is one of the earliest articulated bony fish discovered. Fossils of Guiyu have been found in what is now Qujing, Yunnan, China, in late Silurian marine strata, about 425 million years old. Guiyu is part of the Xiaoxiang fauna which is rich in fossils representing a marine ecosystem. Found in the late Ludlow-aged Kuanti Formation, the remains were dated using conodonts as index fossils. The Xiaoxiang fauna also includes galeaspids, placoderms and acanthodians.
Discovery and naming
Guiyu was described by Chinese palaeontologist Zhu Min (朱敏) and others in 2009, based on a near-complete articulated specimen. The generic name Guiyu is a transliteration of the Mandarin 鬼魚 guǐyú "ghost fish" and the specific name oneiros is from Greek ὄνειρος "dream".
Description
The holotype specimen is about 26 centimetres (10 in) in length and about 11 centimetres (4.3 in) in depth. The caudal fin has not been preserved, and the living fish is estimated to have been around 30 centimetres (12 in) long. The head made up about 23% of the body length, and the body had a streamlined shape.
The public source identifies “Guiyu oneiros” as species of fish (fossil). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Guiyu, oneiros and species.
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The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q134934. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2009.
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This entry incorporates text from “Guiyu oneiros” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.