Chaunax

Chaunax, variously known as coffinfishes, gapers, or frogmouths, is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes. It is one of two genera belonging to the family Chaunacidae, the sea toads. They are found in tropical and subtropical oceans around the world, typically in deep water.

Chaunax

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
ChaunacidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Lophiiformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Lophiiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Lophiiformes

Time the record covers

At least 29 million years on record.

The record covers at least 41.03 Mya to 11.63 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 48.07 Mya to 7.246 Mya.

Eocene — about 4 of 12 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 12 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 7 of 12 occurrencesMiocene49–47 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences47–46 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences46–45 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences45–43 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences43–42 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences42–40 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences25–23 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 1 occurrence22–21 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences21–19 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences18–16 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences11–9.3 Mya — about 1 occurrence9.3–7.8 Mya — about 1 occurrence7.8–6.4 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences41.03 Mya11.63 Mya48.9 Mya6.4 Mya

12 occurrences of Chaunax 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

12 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

3 formations

Sant’Agata Fossili — 45.07°N, 7.94°EMiretrain Marl — 43.56°N, 1.11°WDonzacq Marl — 43.75°N, 0.84°W

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The named rock units Chaunax has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Chaunax and its relatives

Miocene

Where Chaunax and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

426 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Chaunax, 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

6 references

Each of the 12 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 content3

Picture of Chaunax

Credit
SEFSC Pascagoula Laboratory; Collection of Brandi Noble, NOAA/NMFS/SEFSC
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Chaunax suttkusi · MCZ:Ich:172348

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC0 Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

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 itChaunacidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lowe 1846