Ammodytes hexapterus

Ammodytes hexapterus, the Pacific sand lance, is a small, planktivorous, saltwater fish found across the North Pacific. This tiny fish is a member of the Ammodytidae family, or sand lances. The name hails from Greek, with ammos meaning "sand" and dytes meaning "liking to immerse in". Like many other sand lances, the Pacific sand lance a benthic fish that immerses itself in the sand.

Ammodytes hexapterus

brewbooks from near Seattle, USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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
Pacific sand lacePBDB
Sits inside
AmmodytesPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 2.8 million years on record.

The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 774 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 129 ka.

Miocene — about 0 of 6 occurrencesPliocene — about 1 of 6 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 5 of 6 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 6 occurrences5.4–5.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences5.3–5.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.1–4.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.9–4.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.7–4.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.5–4.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.3–4.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.1–3.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.9–3.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.7–3.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences778 ka–583 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence583 ka–389 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences389 ka–194 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences194 ka–0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.6 Mya774 ka5.8 Mya0 Mya

6 occurrences of Ammodytes hexapterus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

6 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

4 formations

Port Orford — 42.81°N, 124.53°WYorktown — 35.36°N, 76.82°WElk River — 42.81°N, 124.81°WTimms Point Silt — 33.73°N, 118.28°W

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The named rock units Ammodytes hexapterus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ammodytes hexapterus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Ammodytes hexapterus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

538 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Ammodytes hexapterus, 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

4 references

Each of the 6 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 content1

Picture of Ammodytes hexapterus

Credit
brewbooks from near Seattle, USA
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ammodytes hexapterus was found in Sketchfab.

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 itAmmodytes through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Pallas 1814