Centrolophus
The black ruff is a medusafish, the only member of the genus Centrolophus. It is a pelagic fish found in all tropical and temperate oceans at depths of 0 to 1,000 m. Its length is typically up to 60 cm (24 in), but it may reach 150 cm (60 in). Other common names include rudderfish and blackfish.

Uncredited · CC BY-SA 1.0 · via Wikidata/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
- CentrolophidaePBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Time the record covers
At most 4.4 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 15.98 Mya and 11.63 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Centrolophus 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
1 occurrences- Miocene100%
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.
Centrolophus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Centrolophus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
27 taxa- Abruzzoichthys erminioi1 site
- Acropoma1 site
- Alepisaurus1 site
- Alosa1 site
- Alosa crassa1 site
- Aphanopus1 site
- Archaeotetraodon1 site
- Archaeotetraodon dicarloi1 site
- Argyropelecus logearti1 site
- Bannikovichthys paelignus1 site
- Benthodesmus1 site
- Borostomias1 site
- Chauliodus1 site
- Diaphus1 site
- Diaphus vexillifer1 site
- Fanteichthys torricellensis1 site
- Heptranchias perlo1 site
- Hygophum1 site
- Lampanyctus ecnomi1 site
- Lepidopus1 site
- Paralepis albyi1 site
- Parascopelus lacertosus1 site
- Polymerichthys1 site
- Ranzania zappai1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Centrolophus, 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 Centrolophus
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 1.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- MCZ Ichthyology
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Centrolophus niger · MCZ:Ich:172781
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 itCentrolophidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lacépède 1803