Benthosema
Benthosema is a genus of lanternfishes.

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- Sits inside
- MyctophidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Myctophiformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Myctophiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Myctophiformes
Time the record covers
At least 22 million years on record.
The record covers at least 23.04 Mya to 774 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 27.3 Mya to 11.7 ka.
81 occurrences of Benthosema on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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
81 occurrences- Oligocene1%
- Miocene47%
- Pliocene28%
- Pleistocene23%
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
16 formations
- Gutingkeng Formation12
- Shinzato Formation5
- Lindos Bay Formation4
- Chagres Sandstone Formation2
- Nobori Formation2
- Pico Formation2
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The named rock units Benthosema has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 43 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Benthosema and its relatives
MioceneWhere Benthosema and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
714 taxa- Notoscopelus elongatus20 sites
- Gadiculus argenteus19 sites
- Scopelopsis pliocenicus19 sites
- Lobianchia dofleini18 sites
- Hygophum17 sites
- Diaphus cavallonis16 sites
- Diaphus15 sites
- Lesueurigobius15 sites
- Myctophum punctatum15 sites
- Ceratoscopelus maderensis14 sites
- Diaphus taaningi14 sites
- Myctophum14 sites
- Deltentosteus13 sites
- Diaphus befralai13 sites
- Diaphus splendidus13 sites
- Hygophum benoiti13 sites
- Otolithus labiatus13 sites
- Diaphus holti12 sites
- Hygophum derthonensis12 sites
- Lampadena dea12 sites
- Lampanyctus latesulcatus12 sites
- Maurolicus muelleri12 sites
- Notoscopelus resplendens12 sites
- Polyipnus12 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 62 sites for Benthosema, 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
22 references- Early Pliocene otolith assemblages from the outer-shelf environment reveal the establishment of mesopelagic fish fauna over 3 million years ago in southwestern Taiwan12
- Tortonian teleost otoliths from northern Italy: taxonomic synthesis and stratigraphic significance10
- Lanternfish otoliths (Teleostei, Myctophidae) from the Pliocene and Pleistocene of Japan8
- Reconstruction of the fossil marine bony fish fauna (Teleostei) from the Eocene to Pleistocene of New Zealand by means of otoliths. With studies of Recent congroid, morid and trachinoid otoliths7
- Pleistocene fish otoliths from the Mediterranean Basin: a synthesis7
- Connectivity controls on the late Miocene eastern Mediterranean fish fauna6
- Pleistocene marine fish invasions and paleoenvironmental reconstructions in the eastern Mediterranean4
- Fossil lanternfish otoliths of California, with notes on fossil Myctophidae of North America4
- Tortonian fish otoliths from turbiditic deposits in Northern Italy: Taxonomic and stratigraphic significance3
- Fish otoliths from the New Zealand Tertiary3
- The fossil otolith record of fishes (Vertebrata: Teleostei) in Greece2
- Fossil marine fishes and the ʻLago Mareʼ event: Has the Mediterranean ever transformed into a brackish lake?2
Each of the 81 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. 10 further references are not listed. 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 content2
Picture of Benthosema
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- MCZ Ichthyology
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Benthosema fibulatum · MCZ:Ich:151546
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Benthosema”
- 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 itMyctophidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Goode and Bean 1896