Atherinopsis californiensis
Atherinopsis californiensis, the jack silverside or jacksmelt, is a species of neotropical silverside native to the Pacific coast of North America from Oregon, United States to southern Baja California, Mexico. This species often grows to 49 cm, but specimens of 55 cm (22 in) in total length have been reported. It is silver throughout the body, with a grey dorsal pattern, and a light silver ventral-lateral, as well as a yellow spot present behind the eye, on the operculum. and is important commercially as a source of human food. It is the only known member of its genus. They are commonly confused with the Atherinops affinis, the topsmelt silverside.
Ken-ichi Ueda · CC BY 4.0 · 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- Also called
- jack silversidePBDB
- Sits inside
- AtherinopsisPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Time the record covers
At least 2.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 3.6 Mya to 0 Mya.
5 occurrences of Atherinopsis californiensis on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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- Pliocene20%
- Pleistocene60%
- Holocene20%
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
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Atherinopsis californiensis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Atherinopsis californiensis and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Atherinopsis californiensis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
452 taxa- Cymatogaster aggregata5 sites
- Engraulis mordax5 sites
- Galeorhinus galeus5 sites
- Genyonemus lineatus5 sites
- Myliobatis californica5 sites
- Paralichthys californicus5 sites
- Porichthys notatus5 sites
- Seriphus politus5 sites
- Triakis semifasciata5 sites
- Carcharodon carcharias4 sites
- Chilara taylori4 sites
- Isurus oxyrinchus4 sites
- Lepidogobius lepidus4 sites
- Merluccius productus4 sites
- Ophidion scrippsae4 sites
- Raja4 sites
- Squatina californica4 sites
- Alopias vulpinus3 sites
- Atractoscion nobilis3 sites
- Carcharhinus3 sites
- Citharichthys3 sites
- Citharichthys sordidus3 sites
- Citharichthys stigmaeus3 sites
- Electrona rissoi3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Atherinopsis californiensis, 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
5 references- Preliminary List of the Marine Fishes and Other Vertebrate Remains from the Late Pleistocene Palos Verdes Sand Formation at Costa Mesa, Orange County, California1
- Otoliths and other fish remains from the Chumash Midden at Rincon Point (SBa-1) Santa Barbara-Ventura counties, California1
- Fish remains, mostly otoliths and teeth, from the Palos Verdes Sand (Late Pleistocene) of California1
- Otoliths and other fish remains from a Long Beach, California, Pliocene deposit1
- The fish fauna of the Playa Del Rey locality, a southern California marine Pleistocene deposit1
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. 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 Atherinopsis californiensis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Ken-ichi Ueda
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Atherinopsis californiensis 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 itAtherinopsis through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Girard 1854