Apogonidae
Cardinalfishes are a family, Apogonidae, of ray-finned fishes found in the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans; they are chiefly marine, but some species are found in brackish water and a few are found in fresh water. A handful of species are kept in aquariums and are popular as small, peaceful, and colourful fish. The family includes about 370 species.

Uncredited · CC BY-SA 1.0 · 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
- CardinalfishPBDB
- Sits inside
- ApogonoideiPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Time the record covers
At least 65 million years on record.
The record covers at least 66 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 72.2 Mya to 0 Mya.
111 occurrences of Apogonidae on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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
111 occurrences- Late Cretaceous4%
- Paleoceneunder 1%
- Eocene44%
- Oligocene6%
- Miocene31%
- Pliocene8%
- Pleistocene5%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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
35 formations
- Quilon Formation7
- Selsey Formation · Bracklesham Group5
- Miretrain Marl Formation5
- Gutingkeng Formation4
- Nanggulan Formation3
- Cook Mountain Formation · Claiborne Group3
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The named rock units Apogonidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 11 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 46 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Apogonidae and its relatives
EoceneWhere Apogonidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
1,889 taxa- Apogon32 sites
- Diaphus23 sites
- Bregmaceros18 sites
- Conger15 sites
- Gobiidae14 sites
- Lesueurigobius12 sites
- Cepola11 sites
- Neobythites11 sites
- Citharus10 sites
- Pterothrissus umbonatus10 sites
- Arnoglossus9 sites
- Dentex9 sites
- Epigonus9 sites
- Hoplobrotula9 sites
- Pomadasys9 sites
- Pseudophichthys9 sites
- Apogon bellovacinus8 sites
- Deltentosteus8 sites
- Haemulon8 sites
- Antigonia angusta7 sites
- Callionymus7 sites
- Cepola rubescens7 sites
- Clupeidae7 sites
- Gnathophis7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 73 sites for Apogonidae, 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
51 references- New perspectives on late Tethyan Neogene biodiversity development of fishes based on Miocene (~ 17 Ma) otholiths from southwestern India13
- Reconstruction of the fossil marine bony fish fauna (Teleostei) from the Eocene to Pleistocene of New Zealand by means of otoliths. With studies of Recent congroid, morid and trachinoid otoliths8
- Fish otoliths from the Lutetian of the Aquitaine Basin (SW France), a breakthrough in the knowledge of the European Eocene ichthyofauna6
- The Selsey Division (Bracklesham Group) at Lee-on-the-Solent, Gosport, (Hants)6
- Middle and late Eocene fish otoliths from the eastern and southern USA5
- Marine middle Eocene fish otoliths from India and Java5
- Early Pliocene otolith assemblages from the outer-shelf environment reveal the establishment of mesopelagic fish fauna over 3 million years ago in southwestern Taiwan4
- The systematic composition of the Eocene actinopterygian fish fauna from Monte Bolca, northern Italy, as known to date4
- Otolithes de poissons du paléocanyon de saubrigues (chattien à langhien), aquitaine méridionale, France4
- Fish otoliths from the pre-evaporitic (Early Messinian) sediments of northern Italy: their stratigraphic and palaeobiogeographic significance3
- Fish otoliths from the Priabonian (Late Eocene) of North Italy and South-East France – Their paleobiogeographical significance3
- Late Miocene otoliths from northern Taiwan: insights into the rarely known Neogene coastal fish community of the subtropical northwest Pacific2
Each of the 111 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. 39 further references are not listed. 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 Apogonidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 1.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Apogonidae 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Apogonidae”
- 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 itApogonoidei through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bonaparte 1846