Trachurus mediterraneus

The Mediterranean horse mackerel, also known as the Black Sea horse mackerel, horse mackerel, Mediterranean scad, common scad, or simply scad, is a species of mackerel in the family Carangidae found in the eastern Atlantic from Bay of Biscay to Mauritania, including the Mediterranean Sea. It is a benthopelagic, subtropical, marine fish that can reach up to 60 cm (24 in) in length. In the countries near the Mediterranean and Black Seas, it makes up a significant portion of fish catch, 54% of fish caught in the latter. Despite overfishing in the 1980s, catch numbers have leveled out and it is listed as least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Trachurus mediterraneus

Foundling · CC BY 3.0 · 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
TrachurusPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 12 million years on record.

The record covers at least 13.82 Mya to 1.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 15.98 Mya to 774 ka.

Miocene — about 1 of 5 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 5 occurrencesPleistocene — about 4 of 5 occurrencesPleistocene16–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences15–15 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences14–14 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.0–2.4 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences2.4–1.9 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.9–1.4 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences1.4–814 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences814 ka–274 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences13.82 Mya1.8 Mya16.5 Mya274 ka

5 occurrences of Trachurus mediterraneus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

5 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.

Trachurus mediterraneus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Trachurus mediterraneus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

127 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Trachurus mediterraneus, 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

3 references

Each of the 5 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Trachurus mediterraneus

Credit
Foundling
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Trachurus mediterraneus 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 itTrachurus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Steindachner 1868)