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The iconic saurichthyid fishes (‘lizard fish’) are specialised predators in the aquatic realm of Early Mesozoic era. After a rapid diversification in the Middle Triassic, they seemingly shrank their geographical distribution from a global pattern to that mainly confined to Euramerican region and exhibited increasing rarity in the freshwater environment since the Late Triassic. Here, we report a new species of  Saurichthys  from the Late Triassic freshwater deposits of the Junggar Basin, northwestern China. This new species  Saurichthys sui  sp. nov. is characterised by a mosaic of primitive and derived features in  Saurichthys : large circumorbital bones and spiracular plate, a vestigial opercle and pectoral fins devoid of fringing fulcra. This feature combination supports the hypothesis that the freshwater system might have served as the refugium of some basal saurichthyid species.  Saurichthys sui  represents the first record of large predatory fishes in the Triassic Junggar Basin and indicates the establishment of a trophically complex lacustrine ecosystem there. Together with the co-occurring fossil insects and plants,  Saurichthys sui , showing some affinities to its congeners from central Asia and North China, implies some biogeographical links of the fossil localities of non-marine  Saurichthys  on the continents north to PalaeoTethys during the Middle-Late Triassic.

The predatory fish Saurichthys reflects a complex underwater ecosystem of the Late Triassic Junggar Basin, Xinjiang, China