Catostomidae
The Catostomidae are the suckers of the order Cypriniformes, with about 78 species in this family of freshwater fishes. The Catostomidae are almost exclusively native to North America. The only exceptions are Catostomus catostomus, found in both North America and Russia, and Myxocyprinus asiaticus found only in China. In the Ozarks they are a common food fish and a festival is held each year to celebrate them. The bigmouth buffalo, Ictiobus cyprinellus, can reach an age up to 127 years, making it the oldest known freshwater teleost by more than 50 years.

Brian Gratwicke · 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
- CobitoideiPBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Cypriniformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Cypriniformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Cypriniformes
- Environment
- freshwaterPBDB, for Cypriniformes
Time the record covers
At least 48 million years on record.
The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 0 Mya.
60 occurrences of Catostomidae 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
60 occurrencesThese 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
- Green River Formation4
- Alturas Formation4
- Florissant Formation3
- Clarno Formation2
- Allenby Formation · Princeton Group2
- Ogallala Formation1
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The named rock units Catostomidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 34 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Catostomidae and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Catostomidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
979 taxa- Catostomus13 sites
- Chasmistes8 sites
- Cyprinidae7 sites
- Amyzon6 sites
- Gila6 sites
- Ondatra zibethicus6 sites
- Ptychocheilus6 sites
- Rana6 sites
- Aenocyon dirus5 sites
- Anatidae5 sites
- Aplodinotus grunniens5 sites
- Colubridae5 sites
- Equus5 sites
- Gyraulus5 sites
- Ictaluridae5 sites
- Lepisosteus5 sites
- Microtus pennsylvanicus5 sites
- Odocoileus virginianus5 sites
- Peromyscus5 sites
- Procyon lotor5 sites
- Amyzon gosiutensis4 sites
- Anura4 sites
- Aves4 sites
- Branta canadensis4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 45 sites for Catostomidae, 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
33 references- Two Pliocene (Blancan) vertebrate faunas from Douglas County, Nevada9
- Biogeography of the Pliocene and Pleistocene vertebrate faunas of Northeastern California and their temporal significance to the development of the Modoc Plateau and Klamath Mountain Region6
- After Hopewell in Southern Québec4
- Middle Eocene Freshwater Fishes from British Columbia3
- On the fishes of the Tertiary shales of the South Park3
- Geochronology and Paleontology of the Paisley Fish Locality, Summer Lake Basin, Northern Lake County, Oregon2
- Paleontology of the Green River Formation, with a review of the fish fauna2
- Amyzon gosiutensis, a New Catostomid Fish from the Green River Formation2
- Pliocene Molluscs and Fishes from Northeastern California and Northwestern Nevada2
- The Clark's Cave bone deposit and the Late Pleistocene paleoecology of the central Appalachian Mountains of Virginia2
- Freshwater fish remains from the Clarno Formation Ochoco Mountains of north-central Oregon2
- The Pleistocene vertebrates of Michigan2
Each of the 60 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. 21 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 content1
Picture of Catostomidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Brian Gratwicke
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Catostomidae 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 itCobitoidei through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Agassiz 1850)