Diaphus
Diaphus is a genus of lanternfishes. It is the most species-rich lanternfish genus.

Uncredited · 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
- MyctophidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Myctophiformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Myctophiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Myctophiformes
Time the record covers
At least 48 million years on record.
The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 66 Mya to 0 Mya.
732 occurrences of Diaphus on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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
732 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
73 formations
- Cubagua Formation22
- Escudo de Veraguas Formation · Bocas del Toro Group21
- Shinzato Formation18
- Chagres Sandstone Formation17
- Miretrain Marl Formation16
- Cayo Agua Formation · Bocas del Toro Group15
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The named rock units Diaphus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 49 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 376 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Diaphus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Diaphus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
1,869 taxa- Lesueurigobius36 sites
- Lobianchia dofleini31 sites
- Maurolicus muelleri29 sites
- Acropoma serrata28 sites
- Myctophum27 sites
- Bregmaceros25 sites
- Gobius25 sites
- Hygophum25 sites
- Deltentosteus24 sites
- Gadiculus argenteus24 sites
- Ceratoscopelus maderensis23 sites
- Notoscopelus elongatus22 sites
- Paraulopus22 sites
- Notoscopelus resplendens21 sites
- Scopelopsis pliocenicus21 sites
- Notoscopelus scopelopsoides20 sites
- Otolithus labiatus20 sites
- Coelorinchus divulgatus19 sites
- Grammonus19 sites
- Auchenoceros bicaudatus18 sites
- Dentex18 sites
- Hygophum derthonensis18 sites
- Bregmaceros albyi16 sites
- Hoplostethus praemediterraneus16 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 280 sites for Diaphus, and this reads 240 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
87 references- Otoliths of the Myctophidae from the Neogene of tropical America113
- Reconstruction of the fossil marine bony fish fauna (Teleostei) from the Eocene to Pleistocene of New Zealand by means of otoliths. With studies of Recent congroid, morid and trachinoid otoliths79
- Tortonian teleost otoliths from northern Italy: taxonomic synthesis and stratigraphic significance46
- Lanternfish otoliths (Teleostei, Myctophidae) from the Pliocene and Pleistocene of Japan43
- Fish otoliths from the pre-evaporitic (Early Messinian) sediments of northern Italy: their stratigraphic and palaeobiogeographic significance28
- Données récentes sur Les téléostéens du Miocène et du Pliocéne d'Italie28
- Diaphus Otoliths from the European Neogene (Myctophidae, Teleostei)25
- Diaphus otoliths from the European Oligocene (Myctophidae, Teleostei)24
- Connectivity controls on the late Miocene eastern Mediterranean fish fauna23
- Fish otoliths from the Lutetian of the Aquitaine Basin (SW France), a breakthrough in the knowledge of the European Eocene ichthyofauna21
- Fish otoliths from the New Zealand Tertiary16
- Fish otoliths from the early Miocene of Chile: a window into the evolution of marine bony fishes in the Southeast Pacific15
Each of the 732 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. 75 further references are not listed. 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 Diaphus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- LACM Ichthyology
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Diaphus impostor · LACM:Fish:44251.001
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Diaphus”
- 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 itMyctophidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Eigenmann and Eigenmann 1890)