Agonidae

Agonidae is a family of small, bottom-dwelling, cold-water marine fish. Common names for members of this family include poachers, Irish lords, sea ravens, alligatorfishes, starsnouts, hooknoses, and rockheads. They are notable for having elongated bodies covered by scales modified into bony plates, and for using their large pectoral fins to move in short bursts. The family includes about 59 species in some 25 genera, some of which are quite widespread.

Agonidae

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
Also called
poachersPBDB
Sits inside
CottalesPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Perciformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Perciformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Perciformes

Time the record covers

At least 10 million years on record.

The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 5.333 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 3.6 Mya.

Oligocene — about 0 of 6 occurrencesMiocene — about 5 of 6 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 6 occurrencesPliocene24–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences21–21 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences11–9.9 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences9.9–9.2 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences9.2–8.6 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences8.6–7.9 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences7.9–7.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.8–5.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.1–4.5 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences4.5–3.8 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences3.8–3.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences15.98 Mya5.333 Mya23.5 Mya3.1 Mya

6 occurrences of Agonidae 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

6 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

Navidad — 33.89°S, 71.83°WNavidad — 33.95°S, 71.87°WYorktown — 35.36°N, 76.82°WSant’Agata Fossili — 45.07°N, 7.94°ELacui — 42.69°S, 74.12°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Agonidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Agonidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Agonidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

587 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Agonidae, 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 6 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 Agonidae

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Agonidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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

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 itCottales through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.