Porichthys notatus

The plainfin midshipman is a species of bottom-dwelling batrachoid toadfish. It is a member of the midshipman genus, Porichthys, the only batrachoid fishes that have photophores. It is native to the North American coast of the Pacific Ocean, where its distribution extends along the coast from Sitka, Alaska, to Magdalena Bay in southern Baja California. There it inhabits shallow waters and will make migrations every spring to the rocky intertidal zones of the coast to breed.

Porichthys notatus

U.S. Geological Survey Department of the Interior/USGS U.S. Geological Survey/photo by Jane Doe · 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
Also called
plainfin midshipmanPBDB
Sits inside
PorichthysPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Batrachoidiformes
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Batrachoidiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Batrachoidiformes

Time the record covers

At least 3.5 million years on record.

The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 0 Mya.

Miocene — about 0 of 12 occurrencesPliocene — about 2 of 12 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 9 of 12 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 of 12 occurrences5.4–5.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences5.3–5.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.1–4.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.9–4.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.7–4.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.5–4.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.3–4.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences4.1–3.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.9–3.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.7–3.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.5–3.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.1–2.9 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.9–2.7 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.7–2.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences778 ka–583 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences583 ka–389 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences389 ka–194 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences194 ka–0 Mya — about 7 occurrences3.6 Mya11.7 ka5.8 Mya0 Mya

12 occurrences of Porichthys notatus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

12 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

4 formations

Palos Verdes Sand — 33.76°N, 118.29°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.66°N, 117.90°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.99°N, 118.45°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.75°N, 118.29°WOnzole — 0.87°N, 79.89°WSan Pedro — 33.75°N, 118.29°WTimms Point Silt — 33.73°N, 118.28°W

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The named rock units Porichthys notatus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Porichthys notatus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Porichthys notatus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

530 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Porichthys notatus, 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

8 references

Each of the 12 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 Porichthys notatus

Credit
U.S. Geological Survey Department of the Interior/USGS U.S. Geological Survey/photo by Jane Doe
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Porichthys notatus 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 itPorichthys through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Girard 1854