Retropinnidae McCulloch, 1927

Schwarzhans, Werner, Scofield, R. Paul, Tennyson, Alan J. D., Worthy, Jennifer P. & Worthy, Trevor H., 2012, Fish remains, mostly otoliths, from the non-marine early Miocene of Otago, New Zealand, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 57 (2), pp. 319-350 : 332

Family Retropinnidae McCulloch, 1927

The first fossil fish skeletons of the genus Prototroctes were recorded from the middle Pleistocene of New Zealand from near Gisborne by McDowall et al. (2006a), based on the diagnostic strengthened bounding rays in the caudal fin. McDowall et al. related the mid−Pleistocene skeletons to the recently extinct P. oxyrhynchus Günther, 1870 , but the more backward location of the dorsal fin halfway between pelvic and anal fins could in fact point to their being from a distinct species. When considering the many otoliths of Prototroctes found in the Bannockburn Formation (see below), it may seem reasonable to assume that some of the material recorded as unspecified galaxiid skeletal remains by Lee et al. (2007) could in fact represent specimens of Prototroctes .