Notoscopelus
Notoscopelus is a genus of lanternfishes.

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
- GymnoscopelinaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Myctophiformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Myctophiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Myctophiformes
Time the record covers
At least 17 million years on record.
The record covers at least 18.7 Mya to 774 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 33.9 Mya to 11.7 ka.
107 occurrences of Notoscopelus 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
107 occurrences- Oligoceneunder 1%
- Miocene66%
- Pliocene13%
- Pleistocene20%
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
26 formations
- Mount Harris Formation6
- Navidad Formation5
- Lindos Bay Formation3
- Bells Creek Mudstone Formation3
- Sant’Agata Fossili Formation3
- Rifle Butts Siltstone Formation2
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The named rock units Notoscopelus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 61 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Notoscopelus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Notoscopelus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
1,000 taxa- Hygophum21 sites
- Lobianchia dofleini21 sites
- Diaphus19 sites
- Diaphus splendidus19 sites
- Diaphus cavallonis18 sites
- Scopelopsis pliocenicus18 sites
- Gadiculus argenteus17 sites
- Lesueurigobius16 sites
- Maurolicus muelleri16 sites
- Myctophum16 sites
- Acropoma serrata15 sites
- Deltentosteus15 sites
- Diaphus curvatus15 sites
- Diaphus holti15 sites
- Myctophum punctatum15 sites
- Otolithus labiatus15 sites
- Benthosema glaciale14 sites
- Ceratoscopelus maderensis14 sites
- Hygophum benoiti13 sites
- Phycis13 sites
- Diaphus rafinesquii12 sites
- Diaphus taaningi12 sites
- Lampadena dea12 sites
- Auchenoceros bicaudatus11 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 86 sites for Notoscopelus, 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
25 references- 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 otoliths25
- Tortonian teleost otoliths from northern Italy: taxonomic synthesis and stratigraphic significance21
- Fish otoliths from the early Miocene of Chile: a window into the evolution of marine bony fishes in the Southeast Pacific8
- The fossil otolith record of fishes (Vertebrata: Teleostei) in Greece7
- Lanternfish otoliths (Teleostei, Myctophidae) from the Pliocene and Pleistocene of Japan7
- Pleistocene fish otoliths from the Mediterranean Basin: a synthesis5
- Connectivity controls on the late Miocene eastern Mediterranean fish fauna4
- Fish otoliths from the New Zealand Tertiary4
- Pleistocene marine fish invasions and paleoenvironmental reconstructions in the eastern Mediterranean3
- Tortonian fish otoliths from turbiditic deposits in Northern Italy: Taxonomic and stratigraphic significance3
- Paleobathymetric interpretation of the fish otoliths from the lower - middle quaternary deposits of Kephallonia and Zakynthos islands (Ionian Sea, Western Greece)2
- Fish otoliths from the pre-evaporitic (Early Messinian) sediments of northern Italy: their stratigraphic and palaeobiogeographic significance2
Each of the 107 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. 13 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 Notoscopelus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- 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
- Notoscopelus resplendens · uwfc:adult collection:uw 157359
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 itGymnoscopelinae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Guenther 1864