Argyropelecus

Argyropelecus is an oceanic ray-finned fish genus in the deep sea hatchetfish family Sternoptychidae. A collective name is "silver hatchetfishes", but this can also refer to a species of the freshwater hatchetfishes which are not particularly closely related to this. The large pupils of these marine hatchetfishes enable them to see dim objects in the deep sea, where light barely penetrates.

Argyropelecus

Sandra Raredon/Smithsonian Institution · Public Domain · 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
Sits inside
SternoptychidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Sternoptychidae
Life habit
nektonic, depth=deepPBDB, for Sternoptychidae
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Sternoptychidae
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Sternoptychidae
Environment
oceanic,marinePBDB, for Sternoptychidae

Time the record covers

At least 24 million years on record.

The record covers at least 27.3 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 33.9 Mya to 129 ka.

Eocene — about 0 of 16 occurrencesOligocene — about 2 of 16 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 7 of 16 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 4 of 16 occurrencesPleistocene — about 3 of 16 occurrences35–33 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences33–32 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences32–31 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences31–30 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences30–29 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences29–28 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences28–27 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences27–25 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences12–10 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences10–9.2 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences9.2–8.1 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences8.1–6.9 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences6.9–5.8 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences5.8–4.6 Mya — about 1 occurrence4.6–3.5 Mya — about 1 occurrence3.5–2.3 Mya — about 3 occurrences2.3–1.2 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.2–0 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences27.3 Mya2.58 Mya34.6 Mya0 Mya

16 occurrences of Argyropelecus on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

16 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

3 formations

Modelo — 34.13°N, 118.48°WModelo — 34.13°N, 118.42°WMonterey — 34.61°N, 120.44°WMonterey — 33.71°N, 118.28°WMaykop — 43.14°N, 46.84°E

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The named rock units Argyropelecus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 11 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Argyropelecus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Argyropelecus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

433 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 16 sites for Argyropelecus, 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 16 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 Argyropelecus

Credit
Sandra Raredon/Smithsonian Institution
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Argyropelecus 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 itSternoptychidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cocco 1829