Awesome Viper Fish Fossil Predator and Prey

Description: Eurypholis is betrayed as a predator by its wide gape and needle sharp teeth, allowing it to easily engulf smaller prey fish. The flanks carry a line of large bony scales, readily visible in the accompanying photos. This genus went extinct by the Upper Cretaceous. The shrimp is a member of the genus Carpopenaeus, a commonly-seen fossil from the region. The shrimp may have been too much for the Eurypholis to handle, leading to the death of the predator. This is a variant of my favorite fish plaque: The 4 m long Xiphactinus with a 2 m Gillicus in its stomach to be seen as the fantastic “fish-within-a-fish” at the Sternberg Museum in Hays, Kansas.