Physiculus
Physiculus is a genus of morid cods.

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
- MoridaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Gadiformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Gadiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Gadiformes
Time the record covers
At least 22 million years on record.
The record covers at least 23.04 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 33.9 Mya to 0 Mya.
28 occurrences of Physiculus 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
28 occurrences- Oligocene7%
- Miocene79%
- Pliocene2%
- Pleistocene12%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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
11 formations
- Hrušky Formation2
- facies à Congeria Formation1
- Waioha Shellbeds Formation1
- Pakaurangi Formation1
- Hukatere Sandstone Formation1
- Mount Harris Formation1
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The named rock units Physiculus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 16 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Physiculus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Physiculus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
793 taxa- Lesueurigobius14 sites
- Maurolicus muelleri11 sites
- Otolithus labiatus11 sites
- Dentex10 sites
- Diaphus10 sites
- Diaphus pedemontanus10 sites
- Arnoglossus9 sites
- Bregmaceros9 sites
- Cepola rubescens9 sites
- Deltentosteus9 sites
- Diaphus taaningi9 sites
- Lepidopus caudatus9 sites
- Lobianchia dofleini9 sites
- Phycis9 sites
- Diaphus rubus8 sites
- Gadiculus argenteus8 sites
- Myctophum coppa8 sites
- Pomadasys incisus8 sites
- Apogon7 sites
- Diaphus cavallonis7 sites
- Diaphus splendidus7 sites
- Hoplobrotula7 sites
- Hygophum derthonensis7 sites
- Hygophum hygomi7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 28 sites for Physiculus, 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
16 references- Fish otoliths from the pre-evaporitic (Early Messinian) sediments of northern Italy: their stratigraphic and palaeobiogeographic significance5
- 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 otoliths4
- Otolithes de poissons du paléocanyon de saubrigues (chattien à langhien), aquitaine méridionale, France4
- Fish otoliths from the Middle Miocene of Kienberg at Mikulov, Czech REpublic, Vienna Basin: Their paleoenvironmental and paleogeographic significance2
- Les otholites de téléostéens des Marnes de Saubrigues (Miocène d'Aquitaine Méridionale, France)2
- Fish otolith record reveals possible tropical-subtropical fish community in temperate Japan during the exceptionally warm Last Interglacial period1
- Fossil fish otoliths from the Chibanian Miyata Formation, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, with comments on the paleoenvironment1
- Fish otoliths from the early Miocene of Chile: a window into the evolution of marine bony fishes in the Southeast Pacific1
- Fossil marine fishes and the ʻLago Mareʼ event: Has the Mediterranean ever transformed into a brackish lake?1
- Late Messinian mollusks and vertebrates from Moncucco Torinese, north-western Italy. Paleoecological and paleoclimatological implications1
- A record of the Messinian salinity crisis in the eastern Ionian tectonically active domain1
- Tortonian fish otoliths from turbiditic deposits in Northern Italy: Taxonomic and stratigraphic significance1
Each of the 28 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. 4 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 Physiculus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it

Photogrammetry
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Physiculus karrerae · UF:Fish:186289
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Physiculus”
- 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 itMoridae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Kaup 1858