Bregmaceros
Codlets are a family, Bregmacerotidae, of cod-like fishes, containing the single genus Bregmaceros found in tropical and subtropical waters throughout the world. They are very small fishes, and even the largest, B. lanceolatus, reaches only 11.5 cm (4.5 in) in length.

D. ROSS ROBERTSON, ARTURO ANGULO, CAROLE C. BALDWIN, DIANE PITASSY, AMY DRISKELL, LEE WEIGT, IGNACIO J.F. NAVARRO · 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- Sits inside
- BregmacerotidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Gadiformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Gadiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Gadiformes
Time the record covers
At least 40 million years on record.
The record covers at least 41.03 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 48.07 Mya to 0 Mya.
136 occurrences of Bregmaceros 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
136 occurrencesThese 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
39 formations
- Gutingkeng Formation10
- Miretrain Marl Formation4
- Eger Formation3
- Cook Mountain Formation · Claiborne Group3
- Yazoo Formation · Jackson Group2
- Weches Formation2
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The named rock units Bregmaceros has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 15 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 75 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Bregmaceros and its relatives
MioceneWhere Bregmaceros and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
1,547 taxa- Diaphus37 sites
- Maurolicus muelleri30 sites
- Apogon21 sites
- Myctophum18 sites
- Lesueurigobius17 sites
- Syngnathus albyi16 sites
- Pseudophichthys15 sites
- Citharus14 sites
- Gobiidae14 sites
- Myctophum dorsale14 sites
- Trachurus14 sites
- Conger13 sites
- Lepidopus13 sites
- Belone12 sites
- Lobianchia dofleini12 sites
- Spratelloides gracilis12 sites
- Arnoglossus11 sites
- Clupeidae11 sites
- Diaphus splendidus11 sites
- Gobius11 sites
- Haemulon11 sites
- Hygophum11 sites
- Myctophum licatae11 sites
- Otolithus labiatus11 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 125 sites for Bregmaceros, 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
66 references- 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 otoliths13
- Early Pliocene otolith assemblages from the outer-shelf environment reveal the establishment of mesopelagic fish fauna over 3 million years ago in southwestern Taiwan10
- Middle and late Eocene fish otoliths from the eastern and southern USA8
- Fish otoliths from the Lutetian of the Aquitaine Basin (SW France), a breakthrough in the knowledge of the European Eocene ichthyofauna5
- Messinian marine fish communities of the Mediterranean Sea5
- Fish otoliths from the pre-evaporitic (Early Messinian) sediments of northern Italy: their stratigraphic and palaeobiogeographic significance4
- Fish otoliths from the Late Oligocene (Eger and Kiscell Formations) in the Eger area (northeastern Hungary)4
- Données récentes sur Les téléostéens du Miocène et du Pliocéne d'Italie4
- The fossil otolith record of fishes (Vertebrata: Teleostei) in Greece3
- Otolithes de poissons du paléocanyon de saubrigues (chattien à langhien), aquitaine méridionale, France3
- Amnissos: un gisement clé pour la connaissance de l'ichthyofaune du Pliocène supérieur de Crète3
- Découverte d’une ichthyofaune marine dans les diatomites du Pliocène supérieur (Plaisancien) des environs d’Héraklion (Crète centrale, Grèce)3
Each of the 136 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. 54 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 Bregmaceros
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- D. ROSS ROBERTSON, ARTURO ANGULO, CAROLE C. BALDWIN, DIANE PITASSY, AMY DRISKELL, LEE WEIGT, IGNACIO J.F. NAVARRO
- Licence
- CC BY 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Bregmaceros 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, “Codlet”
- 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 itBregmacerotidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Thompson 1840