Vango (fish)

Vango is an extinct genus of milkfish from the Late Cretaceous Lac Kinkony Member of the Maevarano Formation of Madagascar. The type species is Vango fahiny.^[1]

Vango Temporal range: Late Cretaceous, ~70–65.8 Ma PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Actinopterygii
Order:	Gonorynchiformes
Family:	Chanidae
Genus:	†Vango Murray et al., 2023
Species:	†V. fahiny
Binomial name
†Vango fahiny Murray et al., 2023

Discovery and naming

The material that was referred to Vango by Murray et al. (2023) includes opercles, hyomandibulae, frontals, and basioccipitals, and other partial gonorynchiform remains from the Maevarano Formation probably also belong to Vango.^[1]

Matt Friedman was the first to recognize the presence of a gonorynchiform species in the Maevarano fauna, and Murray et al. (2023) named and described Vango fahiny shortly after.^[1]

Description

Vango is similar to the extant milkfish (Chanos chanos) but can be easily distinguished from that species by numerous features, such as the basioccipital and maxilla being relatively shorter than those of C. chanos, and the opercle being overall rounder and having a shorter auricular process.^[1]