Dinichthys

noun

Din·ich·thys

dīˈnikthə̇s

: a genus of large Devonian fishes (subclass Arthrodira) known from both Europe and America and especially abundant in parts of Ohio attaining a length of 30 feet and having the anterior bony armor reduced

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from New Latin, from din- dino- + -ichthys -ichthys

Note: Genus name introduced by the American physician and geologist John Strong Newberry (1822-92) in "On Some Remarkable Fossil Fishes, Discovered by Rev. H. Herzer, in the Black Shale (Devonian) at Delaware, Ohio," Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Sixteenth Meeting, August, 1867 (Cambridge, Mass., 1868), p. 146: "Dr. Newberry exhibited to the section different portions of the head of a gigantic fish, to which he had given the name of Dinichthys Herzeri, and which, he said, from its size and structure, deserved the same distinction among fishes that Dinotherium and Dinornis enjoy among mammals and birds."