Trachinus draco
The greater weever is a species of marine ray-finned fish in the family Trachinidae. It is a benthic fish widely distributed along the eastern Atlantic coastline, extending to the Mediterranean, Aegean and Black Seas. The greater weever is mostly and notoriously known for its venomous spines, which can inflict serious injuries on humans through accidental stinging. Because of this, the greater weever is classified as one of the most venomous fishes in the Mediterranean.

Tomasz Sienicki [user: tsca , mail: tomasz.sienicki at gmail.com] · CC BY 1.0 · 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
- TrachinusPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Time the record covers
At least 17 million years on record.
The record covers at least 20.45 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 1.8 Mya.
8 occurrences of Trachinus draco 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
8 occurrences- Miocene75%
- Pliocene13%
- Pleistocene13%
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
2 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Trachinus draco has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Trachinus draco and its relatives
MioceneWhere Trachinus draco and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
365 taxa- Lesueurigobius7 sites
- Deltentosteus6 sites
- Dentex6 sites
- Apogon5 sites
- Otolithus labiatus5 sites
- Physiculus huloti5 sites
- Pomadasys incisus5 sites
- Bregmaceros4 sites
- Cepola4 sites
- Cepola rubescens4 sites
- Diaphus4 sites
- Diaphus cavallonis4 sites
- Diaphus pedemontanus4 sites
- Diaphus splendidus4 sites
- Gobius4 sites
- Hoplobrotula4 sites
- Hygophum derthonensis4 sites
- Lepidopus caudatus4 sites
- Lobianchia dofleini4 sites
- Maurolicus muelleri4 sites
- Phycis4 sites
- Antigonia capros3 sites
- Arnoglossus3 sites
- Atherina3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Trachinus draco, 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
6 references- Fish otoliths from the pre-evaporitic (Early Messinian) sediments of northern Italy: their stratigraphic and palaeobiogeographic significance2
- Otolithes de poissons du paléocanyon de saubrigues (chattien à langhien), aquitaine méridionale, France2
- The Zanclean marine fish fauna and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of a coastal marine setting in the eastern Mediterranean1
- Tortonian fish otoliths from turbiditic deposits in Northern Italy: Taxonomic and stratigraphic significance1
- Neogene stratigraphy of the Langenboom locality (Noord-Brabant, Netherlands)1
- Revision des otolithes de teleosteens du Tortonien stratotypique et de Montegibbio (Miocene Superieur d'Italie Septentrionale)1
Each of the 8 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 Trachinus draco
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Tomasz Sienicki [user: tsca , mail: tomasz.sienicki at gmail.com]
- Licence
- CC BY 1.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Trachinus draco 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 itTrachinus through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758