Basal Actinopterygian Fish from the Middle Devonian Bunga Beds of New South Wales, Australia

A partial articulated skeleton of a basal actinopterygian fish is described from the Middle Devonian Bunga Beds of New South Wales. The specimen represents a new species and is questionably assigned as a congener of Howqualepis rostridens from the Middle Devonian of central Victoria. This represents the first record of an articulated postrcranium of a Devonian ray-finned fish from New South Wales. The pectoral fin of Howqualepis is also redescribed based on a re-examination of Victorian material. The fin is broader in shape and less extensively unsegmented than previously recognised. The close similarity of the new form with contemporaneous taxa from Victoria and the Aztec Siltstone of Antarctica adds to an already wide body of evidence supporting a regionally endemic freshwater vertebrate fauna in the Middle Devonian of Eastern Gondwana.