Antennariidae

Frogfishes are any member of the anglerfish family Antennariidae, of the order Lophiiformes. Antennariids are known as anglerfish in Australia, where the term "frogfish" refers to members of the unrelated family Batrachoididae. Frogfishes are found in almost all tropical and subtropical oceans and seas around the world, the primary exception being the Mediterranean Sea.

Antennariidae

Christian Gloor from Wakatobi Dive Resort, Indonesia · CC BY 2.0 · 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
AntennarioideiPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Lophiiformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Lophiiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Lophiiformes

Time the record covers

At least 40 million years on record.

The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 7.246 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 5.333 Mya.

Paleocene — about 0 of 7 occurrencesEocene — about 5 of 7 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 7 occurrencesMiocene — about 2 of 7 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 7 occurrences57–55 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences55–54 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences52–50 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences50–48 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences48–46 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences46–45 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences45–43 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences43–41 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences41–39 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences39–38 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences38–36 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences36–34 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences34–32 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.8–6.1 Mya — about 1 occurrence6.1–4.3 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences48.07 Mya7.246 Mya57 Mya4 Mya

7 occurrences of Antennariidae on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

7 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

2 formations

Raz-el-Ain — 35.71°N, 0.64°WPiney Point — 37.61°N, 76.76°W

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The named rock units Antennariidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Antennariidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Antennariidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

480 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Antennariidae, 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

7 references

Each of the 7 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 Antennariidae

Credit
Christian Gloor from Wakatobi Dive Resort, Indonesia
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Antennariidae 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 itAntennarioidei through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.