Hemiramphus

Hemiramphus is a genus of schooling marine fish commonly called halfbeaks, garfish, or ballyhoos, and are members of the family Hemiramphidae. They inhabit the surface of warm temperate and tropical sea, and feed on algae, plankton, and smaller fish. Hemiramphus species are edible but are more important as food fish for larger predatory species including dolphinfish and billfish.

Hemiramphus

Hariprasad Shetty10 · CC0 · 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
HemiramphidaePBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Beloniformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Beloniformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Beloniformes

Time the record covers

At least 44 million years on record.

The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 1.8 Mya.

Paleocene — about 0 of 7 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 7 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 7 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 3 of 7 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 2 of 7 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 7 occurrences57–55 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences55–53 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences53–51 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences51–50 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences50–48 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences35–33 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences33–31 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences31–29 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences29–27 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences14–12 Mya — about 3 occurrences6.4–4.5 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences4.5–2.6 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.6–716 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences48.07 Mya3.6 Mya57 Mya716 ka

7 occurrences of Hemiramphus 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

7 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

1 formation

Hrušky — 48.81°N, 16.63°E

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The named rock units Hemiramphus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Hemiramphus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Hemiramphus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

683 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Hemiramphus, 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 7 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 Hemiramphus

Credit
Hariprasad Shetty10
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Photogrammetry

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Hemiramphus balao · UF:Fish:163779

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 itHemiramphidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Cuvier 1817)