Cryptacanthodes
Cryptacanthodes is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the monogeneric family Cryptacanthodidae, commonly referred to as wrymouths. Three of the four species are found in the Pacific Ocean with one species native to the western Atlantic Ocean where they are benthic fishes, tunneling through soft substrates. It is currently the only known genus in its family.

NOAA · 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
- CryptacanthodidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Perciformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Perciformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Perciformes
Time the record covers
At least 117 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 129 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 774 ka to 0 Mya.
5 occurrences of Cryptacanthodes 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
5 occurrences- Pleistocene80%
- Holocene20%
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 Cryptacanthodes has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Cryptacanthodes and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Cryptacanthodes and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
128 taxa- Ammodytes hexapterus4 sites
- Microgadus proximus4 sites
- Glyptocephalus zachirus3 sites
- Merluccius productus3 sites
- Raja3 sites
- Acipenser medirostris2 sites
- Atheresthes stomias2 sites
- Citharichthys sordidus2 sites
- Cottidae2 sites
- Cymatogaster aggregata2 sites
- Gadus chalcogrammus2 sites
- Leptocottus armatus2 sites
- Parophrys vetulus2 sites
- Sebastes goodei2 sites
- Acipenser1 site
- Acirsa borealis1 site
- Artedius notospilotus1 site
- Astarte montagui1 site
- Atherinops affinis1 site
- Aves1 site
- Axinopsida orbiculata1 site
- Balanus crenatus1 site
- Beringraja binoculata1 site
- Boreotrophon1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Cryptacanthodes, 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
3 references- The Marine Fish Fauna of the Middle Pleistocene Port Orford Formation3
- Brown bear (Ursus arctos) (9880 ± 35 BP) from late-glacial Champlain Sea deposits at Saint-Nicolas, Quebec, Canada, and the dispersal history of brown bears1
- Otoliths and other fish remains from the Timms Point Silt (Early Pleistocene) at San Pedro, California1
Each of the 5 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 content2
Picture of Cryptacanthodes
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- NOAA
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Cryptacanthodes giganteus · UWFC:ADULT COLLECTION:UW 049519
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 itCryptacanthodidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Storer 1839