Centropristis
Centropristis is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes which is a member of the subfamily Serraninae of the family Serranidae, which includes the groupers and anthias. There are five species distributed in the western North Atlantic Ocean. Fishes of this genus are known commonly as sea basses.

SEFSC Pascagoula Laboratory; Collection of Brandi Noble, NOAA/NMFS/SEFSC · 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
- SerraninaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Perciformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Perciformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Perciformes
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.
11 occurrences of Centropristis on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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
11 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
5 formations
- Rosefield Formation · Vicksburg Group1
- Yorktown Formation · Chesapeake Group1
- Lede Formation1
- Moodys Branch Formation1
- Red Bluff Clay Formation1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Centropristis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Centropristis and its relatives
EoceneWhere Centropristis and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
686 taxa- Citharichthys3 sites
- Haemulon3 sites
- Orthopristis3 sites
- Sciaena3 sites
- Trachinus3 sites
- Actinocythereis2 sites
- Atherina2 sites
- Blennius2 sites
- Bolivina2 sites
- Bregmaceros2 sites
- Brotula2 sites
- Buccella2 sites
- Buliminella2 sites
- Cibicides lobatulus2 sites
- Congridae2 sites
- Cynoscion2 sites
- Cytherella2 sites
- Echinocythereis2 sites
- Echiodon2 sites
- Globigerina2 sites
- Gnathophis2 sites
- Latilus2 sites
- Loxoconcha2 sites
- Micropogonias2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Centropristis, 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
10 references- Middle and late Eocene fish otoliths from the eastern and southern USA2
- Additional records of Paleogene fishes (Chondrichthyes and Osteichthyes) from Alabama, USA1
- Biostratigraphy and Paleoecology of Diagnostic Invertebrates and Vertebrates from the Type Locality of the Oligocene Rosefiled Marl Beds, Louisiana1
- Das Sternberger Gestein un seine Artenzahl - Stand 19941
- Late Pleistocene-early Holocene teleostean otoliths from a Mississippi River mudlump1
- Teleost fish otoliths from Lee Creek Mine, Aurora, North Carolina (Yorktown Formation: Pliocene)1
- A teleost otolith fauna from the sands of Lede, Belgium1
- Fisch-Otolithen (Pisces, Teleostei) aus dem Karpatien von Nosislov (Mittelmiozan, Sudmahren)1
- Die Otolithen aus dem Jungtertiär Süd-Rumäniens. 1. Buglow und Sarmat1
- Otolity Paleogénu okolí biarritz1
Each of the 11 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 Centropristis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- SEFSC Pascagoula Laboratory; Collection of Brandi Noble, NOAA/NMFS/SEFSC
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Centropristis 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 itSerraninae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cuvier 1829