Belonidae

Needlefish or long toms are piscivorous fishes primarily associated with very shallow marine habitats or the surface of the open sea. Some genera include species found in marine, brackish, and freshwater environments, while a few genera are confined to freshwater rivers and streams, including Belonion, Potamorrhaphis, and Xenentodon. Needlefish closely resemble North American freshwater gars in being elongated and having long, narrow jaws filled with sharp teeth, and some species of needlefishes are referred to as gars or garfish despite being only distantly related to the true gars. In fact, the name "garfish" was originally used for the needlefish Belone belone in Europe and only later applied to the North American fishes by European settlers during the 18th century.

Belonidae

Philippe Bourjon · CC BY-SA 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
Sits inside
BelonoideiPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Beloniformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Beloniformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Beloniformes

Time the record covers

At least 33 million years on record.

The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 37.71 Mya to 0 Mya.

Eocene — about 2 of 31 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 31 occurrencesMiocene — about 15 of 31 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 12 of 31 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 31 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences35–33 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 2 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–10 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences10–9.0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences9.0–7.7 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences7.7–6.4 Mya — about 5 occurrences6.4–5.1 Mya — about 6 occurrences5.1–3.8 Mya — about 2 occurrences3.8–2.6 Mya — about 9 occurrences2.6–1.3 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.3–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences33.9 Mya11.7 ka38.5 Mya0 Mya

31 occurrences of Belonidae on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

31 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

8 formations

Yazoo — 31.66°N, 92.90°WYazoo — 31.93°N, 91.94°WModelo — 34.13°N, 118.48°WModelo — 34.08°N, 118.24°WBowden — 17.88°N, 76.28°WFinikia — 35.30°N, 25.27°ETamiami — 27.34°N, 82.51°WMonterey — 33.79°N, 117.81°WRaz-el-Ain — 35.71°N, 0.64°WHrušky — 48.81°N, 16.63°E

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The named rock units Belonidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 20 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Belonidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Belonidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

657 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 26 sites for Belonidae, 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

23 references

Each of the 31 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. 11 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 Belonidae

Credit
Philippe Bourjon
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Belonidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itBelonoidei through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bonaparte 1835