Carpiodes cyprinus
The quillback, also known as the quillback sucker or quillback carpsucker, is a type of freshwater fish of the sucker family widely distributed throughout North America. It is deeper-bodied than most suckers, leading to a fuller-bodied appearance. However, the quillback is not a carp. Quillback are catostomids, and like all catostomids, they do not have barbels around the mouth. The quillback is long-lived, with age up to 30 years found in Florida, and lifespans of 44 - 52 years in Canada, Minnesota, Colorado, and Wisconsin.

LouisianaLefty · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
- CarpiodesPBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Cypriniformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Cypriniformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Cypriniformes
- Environment
- freshwaterPBDB, for Cypriniformes
Time the record covers
At most 12 thousand years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.7 ka and 0 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Carpiodes cyprinus on record, most of them in the Holocene. 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
1 occurrences- Holocene100%
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.
Carpiodes cyprinus and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Carpiodes cyprinus and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
85 taxa- Accipitridae1 site
- Acipenser fulvescens1 site
- Aix sponsa1 site
- Alces alces1 site
- Alosa sapidissima1 site
- Ambloplites rupestris1 site
- Amia calva1 site
- Anas acuta1 site
- Anas rubripes1 site
- Anatidae1 site
- Anguilla1 site
- Anserinae1 site
- Aplodinotus grunniens1 site
- Ardea herodias1 site
- Ardeidae1 site
- Bonasa umbellus1 site
- Branta bernicla1 site
- Branta canadensis1 site
- Bubo virginianus1 site
- Bufo americanus1 site
- Canidae1 site
- Canis familiaris1 site
- Castor canadensis1 site
- Catostomatidae indet.1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Carpiodes cyprinus, 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
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Carpiodes cyprinus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- LouisianaLefty
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Carpiodes cyprinus · UF:Fish:238188
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Quillback”
- 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 itCarpiodes through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (LeSueur 1817)