Alosa sapidissima

The American shad is a species of anadromous clupeid fish naturally distributed on the North American coast of the North Atlantic, from Newfoundland to Florida, and as an introduced species on the North Pacific coast. The American shad is not closely related to the other North American shads. Rather, it seems to form a lineage that diverged from a common ancestor of the European taxa before these diversified.

Alosa sapidissima

Shermon Foote Denton · 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
Sits inside
AlosaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Clupeiformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Clupeiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Clupeiformes

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 2 occurrencesPliocene — about 1 of 2 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 0 of 2 occurrencesHolocene — about 1 of 2 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 0.1 occurrences194 ka–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence3.6 Mya11.7 ka5.8 Mya0 Mya

2 occurrences of Alosa sapidissima on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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

2 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

1 formation

Yorktown — 35.36°N, 76.82°W

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The named rock units Alosa sapidissima has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Alosa sapidissima and its relatives

Pliocene

Where Alosa sapidissima and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.

Found in the same rock

515 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Alosa sapidissima, 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

2 references

Each of the 2 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 Alosa sapidissima

Credit
Shermon Foote Denton
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Alosa sapidissima 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 itAlosa through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Wilson 1811)