Ostraciidae

Ostraciidae or Ostraciontidae is a family of squared, bony fish belonging to the order Tetraodontiformes, closely related to the pufferfishes and filefishes. Fish in the family are known variously as boxfishes, cofferfishes, cowfishes and trunkfishes. It contains about 23 extant species in 6 extant genera.

Ostraciidae

portioid · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
OstracioideiPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Tetraodontiformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Tetraodontiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Tetraodontiformes

Time the record covers

At least 65 million years on record.

The record covers at least 66 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 72.2 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 32 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 3 of 32 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 18 of 32 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 32 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 0 of 32 occurrencesPliocene — about 1 of 32 occurrencesPleistocene — about 2 of 32 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences71–69 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences69–66 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences66–64 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences64–61 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences61–59 Mya — about 1 occurrence59–56 Mya — about 2 occurrences56–54 Mya — about 2 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 2 occurrences52–49 Mya — about 2 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 2 occurrences47–44 Mya — about 2 occurrences44–42 Mya — about 2 occurrences42–39 Mya — about 2 occurrences39–37 Mya — about 2 occurrences37–34 Mya — about 1 occurrence34–32 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences32–29 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences29–27 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences4.9–2.5 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.5–0 Mya — about 8 occurrences66 Mya11.7 ka74 Mya0 Mya

32 occurrences of Ostraciidae on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

32 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

16 formations

Tallahatta — 31.38°N, 86.67°WTallahatta — 31.31°N, 88.73°WTallahatta — 31.79°N, 88.32°WTallahatta — 31.37°N, 86.52°WGosport Sand — 31.50°N, 87.80°WGosport Sand — 31.50°N, 88.50°WGosport Sand — 31.76°N, 88.10°WSelsey — 50.80°N, 1.21°WAquia — 38.50°N, 77.59°WNanjemoy — 38.28°N, 77.37°WYazoo — 31.93°N, 91.94°WTakli — 21.15°N, 79.10°ETamiami — 27.34°N, 82.51°WLellinge Greensand — 55.71°N, 12.60°EWilliamsburg — 33.40°N, 79.93°WMenilitic — 49.64°N, 18.73°EArgile des Flandres — 50.85°N, 4.37°ELisbon — 31.36°N, 86.52°WAlai Beds — 42.00°N, 76.00°EBermont — 27.70°N, 82.50°WTupelo Bay — 33.24°N, 80.44°W

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The named rock units Ostraciidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 11 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ostraciidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Ostraciidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

1,231 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 29 sites for Ostraciidae, 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

21 references

Each of the 32 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. 9 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 content1

Picture of Ostraciidae

Credit
portioid
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ostraciidae was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itOstracioidei through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.