Onuxodon

Onuxodon is an Indo-Pacific genus of pearlfishes from the family Carapidae. The generic name is derived from the Greek onyx meaning "claw" and odon meaning "tooth", referring to the sharp fang like teeth of Onuxodon parvibrachium. Species in this genus are distributed from South Africa to Hawaii. They live commensally with molluscs. The three currently recognized species are:Onuxodon fowleri (J. L. B. Smith, 1955) Onuxodon margaritiferae (Rendahl, 1921) Onuxodon parvibrachium (Fowler, 1927)

Onuxodon

craigjhowe · CC BY-NC 4.0 · via GBIF. 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
CarapidaePBDB
Diet
carnivore, parasitePBDB, for Ophidiiformes
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Ophidiiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Ophidiiformes

Time the record covers

At least 50 million years on record.

The record covers at least 56 Mya to 5.333 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 61.66 Mya to 3.6 Mya.

Paleocene — about 1 of 18 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 5 of 18 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 18 occurrencesMiocene — about 10 of 18 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 2 of 18 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 18 occurrences63–61 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences61–59 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences59–57 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences57–55 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences47–45 Mya — about 1 occurrence45–43 Mya — about 1 occurrence43–41 Mya — about 1 occurrence25–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–21 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences21–19 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences19–17 Mya — about 2 occurrences17–15 Mya — about 6 occurrences15–13 Mya — about 1 occurrence13–10 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences6.5–4.5 Mya — about 1 occurrence4.5–2.4 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences56 Mya5.333 Mya63 Mya2 Mya

18 occurrences of Onuxodon 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

18 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

7 formations

Miretrain Marl — 43.56°N, 1.11°WFyansford — 38.18°S, 144.50°EFyansford — 38.23°S, 145.02°EGutingkeng — 23.00°N, 120.42°EGutingkeng — 22.84°N, 120.41°ETashlik — 49.06°N, 31.90°EPort Campbell Limestone — 38.62°S, 142.98°ERifle Butts — 45.03°S, 170.02°ERifle Butts Siltstone — 45.14°S, 170.93°E

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The named rock units Onuxodon 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.

Onuxodon and its relatives

Miocene

Where Onuxodon and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

213 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Onuxodon, 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

7 references

Each of the 18 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 content1

Picture of Onuxodon

Source
GBIF
Credit
craigjhowe
Licence
CC BY-NC 4.0
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itCarapidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Smith 1955