Semicossyphus pulcher

The California sheephead (Bodianus pulcher, is a species of wrasse native to the eastern Pacific Ocean. Its range is from Monterey Bay, California, to the Gulf of California, Mexico. It can live for over 50 years and can reach a size of up to 91 cm and a weight of 16 kg. It is carnivorous, living in rocky reef and kelp bed habitats, feeding primarily on sea urchins, molluscs, and crustaceans.

Semicossyphus pulcher

Uncredited · CC BY-SA 2.5 · 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
California sheepheadPBDB
Sits inside
SemicossyphusPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 1.7 million years on record.

The record covers at least 1.8 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 3.6 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 1 of 11 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 8 of 11 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 2 of 11 occurrences3.7–3.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.6–3.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.4–3.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.1–3.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.0–2.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.9–2.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.5–2.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.2–2.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.0–1.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.9–1.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences820 ka–683 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences683 ka–547 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences547 ka–410 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences410 ka–273 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences273 ka–137 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences137 ka–0 Mya — about 9 occurrences1.8 Mya11.7 ka4.1 Mya0 Mya

11 occurrences of Semicossyphus pulcher 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

11 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

3 formations

Palos Verdes Sand — 33.76°N, 118.29°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.66°N, 117.90°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.60°N, 117.88°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.99°N, 118.45°WTimms Point Silt — 33.73°N, 118.28°WNiguel — 33.64°N, 117.89°W

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The named rock units Semicossyphus pulcher 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.

Semicossyphus pulcher and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Semicossyphus pulcher and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

770 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Semicossyphus pulcher, 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

9 references

Each of the 11 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 Semicossyphus pulcher

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Semicossyphus pulcher 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 itSemicossyphus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Ayres 1854)