Chitonotus pugetensis
The roughback sculpin is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Cottidae, the typical sculpins. This species is found in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The roughback sculpin is the only known member of the genus Chitonotus.

Tim Loh · 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- Also called
- roughback sculpinPBDB
- Sits inside
- ChitonotusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Perciformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Perciformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Perciformes
Time the record covers
At most 763 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 774 ka and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
4 occurrences of Chitonotus pugetensis on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
4 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
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
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The named rock units Chitonotus pugetensis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Chitonotus pugetensis and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Chitonotus pugetensis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
458 taxa- Citharichthys4 sites
- Citharichthys sordidus4 sites
- Citharichthys stigmaeus4 sites
- Cymatogaster aggregata4 sites
- Engraulis mordax4 sites
- Galeorhinus galeus4 sites
- Genyonemus lineatus4 sites
- Isurus oxyrinchus4 sites
- Porichthys notatus4 sites
- Prionace glauca4 sites
- Raja4 sites
- Sebastes (Sebastodes)4 sites
- Seriphus politus4 sites
- Squatina californica4 sites
- Triakis semifasciata4 sites
- Atherinops affinis3 sites
- Cancer productus3 sites
- Chilara taylori3 sites
- Electrona rissoi3 sites
- Leptocottus armatus3 sites
- Merluccius productus3 sites
- Metacarcinus gracilis3 sites
- Myliobatis californica3 sites
- Romaleon branneri3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Chitonotus pugetensis, 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
4 references- Fish remains, mostly otoliths and teeth, from the Palos Verdes Sand (Late Pleistocene) of California1
- Otoliths and other fish remains from the Timms Point Silt (Early Pleistocene) at San Pedro, California1
- The marine fish fauna, based primarily on otoliths, of a Lower Pleistocene deposit at San Pedro, California (LACMIP 332, San Pedro Sand)1
- The fish fauna of the Playa Del Rey locality, a southern California marine Pleistocene deposit1
Each of the 4 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Chitonotus pugetensis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Tim Loh
- Licence
- CC BY 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Chitonotus pugetensis 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 itChitonotus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Steindachner 1876)