Amia calva

The ruddy bowfin is a ray-finned fish native to North America. Common names include mudfish, mud pike, dogfish, grindle, grinnel, swamp trout, and choupique. It is regarded as a relict, being one of only two surviving species of the Halecomorphi, a group of fish that first appeared during the Early Triassic, around 250 million years ago. The bowfin is often considered a "living fossil" because it has retained some morphological characteristics of its early ancestors. It is one of two species in the genus Amia, along with Amia ocellicauda, the eyespot bowfin. The closest living relatives of bowfins are gars, with the two groups being united in the clade Holostei.

Amia calva

Zachary Randall · CC BY 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
bowfinPBDB
Sits inside
AmiaPBDB
Diet
carnivore, piscivorePBDB, for Amiiformes
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Amiiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Amiiformes

Time the record covers

At least 12 million years on record.

The record covers at least 12.5 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 16.3 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 3 of 12 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 12 occurrencesPleistocene — about 6 of 12 occurrencesPleistocene17–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences10–9.5 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences9.5–9.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.8–2.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.2–1.7 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.7–1.1 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences1.1–560 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence560 ka–0 Mya — about 7 occurrences12.5 Mya11.7 ka16.8 Mya0 Mya

12 occurrences of Amia calva on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

12 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

5 formations

Valentine — 42.78°N, 100.03°WOgallala — 39.08°N, 99.75°WAlachua — 29.55°N, 82.52°WFort Thompson — 27.80°N, 82.80°WBermont — 27.70°N, 82.50°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Amia calva has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Amia calva and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Amia calva and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

602 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Amia calva, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

12 references

Each of the 12 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Amia calva

Credit
Zachary Randall
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAmia through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1766