Burnhamia, CAPPETTA, 1976

Adnet, Sylvain, Cappetta, Henri, Guinot, Guillaume & Sciara, Giuseppe Notarbartolo Di, 2012, Evolutionary history of the devilrays (Chondrichthyes: Myliobatiformes) from fossil and morphological inference, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 166 (1), pp. 132-159 : 141

GENUS † BURNHAMIA CAPPETTA, 1976

Included species: † Burnhamia daviesi ( Woodward, 1889) ; † Burnhamia fetahi Cappetta, 1985 ; † Burnhamia glikmani ( Pfeil, 1981) .

Occurrences: This genus is known from the Late Palaeocene to the Late Eocene and was largely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere (see Cappetta, 1987, and references therein).

Remarks: This genus was erected on material originally placed in the genus Rhinoptera by Woodward (1889, formally as † Rhinoptera daviesi ). Cappetta (1976) attributed this material to a new genus amongst the mobulids on the basis of: an evident reduction of tooth size, an increase in file number (more than eight), and a fine ornamentation rarely planed on the concave occlusal surface, leading to a supposed lack of biomechanical stress as observable in teeth of filter-feeders and contrary to the benthic batoids with grinding-type dentition as the rhinopterids. † Burnhamia fetahi illustrates the extreme reduction in tooth size and one can clearly observe anterior cuspidate teeth, lacking in rhinopterid or myliobatid taxa. Numerous Palaeogene fossils attributed to the genus Rhinoptera belong in fact to the different species of Burnhamia . The extinct species † Mobula glikmani Pfeil, 1981 , was only named in the text ( Pfeil, 1981) from the material recovered in the Eocene of Kazakhstan ( Glikman, 1964). Cappetta (2006) refuted this attribution and reported this material as belonging to the genus † Burnhamia .