Centrarchidae

Centrarchidae, better known as sunfishes or centrarchids, is a family of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the order Centrarchiformes, native only to North America. There are eight universally included genera within the centrarchid family: Lepomis, Micropterus, Pomoxis (crappies), Enneacanthus, Centrarchus, Archoplites, Ambloplites, and Acantharchus. Their closest relatives are the pygmy sunfishes of the family Elassomatidae, which are sometimes placed in the same family, although presently treated as distinct.

Centrarchidae

Drawing by Duane Raver The original uploader was Tkinias at English Wikipedia . · 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
Also called
sunfishPBDB
Sits inside
CentrarchoideiPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 51 million years on record.

The record covers at least 51.1 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 0 Mya.

Paleocene — about 0 of 50 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 50 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 50 occurrencesMiocene — about 10 of 50 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 50 occurrencesPleistocene — about 26 of 50 occurrences57–55 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences55–53 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences53–51 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences51–50 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences25–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–21 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences21–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–15 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences15–13 Mya — about 2 occurrences13–11 Mya — about 2 occurrences11–9.5 Mya — about 2 occurrences9.5–7.6 Mya — about 1 occurrence7.6–5.7 Mya — about 1 occurrence5.7–3.8 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences3.8–1.9 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.9–0 Mya — about 38 occurrences51.1 Mya11.7 ka57 Mya0 Mya

50 occurrences of Centrarchidae 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

50 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

13 formations

Bermont — 27.70°N, 82.50°WOgallala — 39.08°N, 99.75°WOgallala — 38.90°N, 101.70°WFort Thompson — 27.80°N, 82.80°WValentine — 42.78°N, 100.03°WKingsdown — 37.04°N, 100.50°WFleming — 31.00°N, 93.40°WTulare — 37.73°N, 121.55°WTurlock Lake — 37.06°N, 120.20°WBacons Castle — 38.16°N, 76.83°WWasatch — 41.53°N, 108.56°WSan Antonio — 37.75°N, 122.13°WSiesta — 37.85°N, 122.11°WLatah — 46.99°N, 116.28°W

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The named rock units Centrarchidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 24 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Centrarchidae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Centrarchidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

748 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 26 sites for Centrarchidae, 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

25 references

Each of the 50 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. 13 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 Centrarchidae

Credit
Drawing by Duane Raver The original uploader was Tkinias at English Wikipedia .
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Centrarchidae 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 itCentrarchoidei through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cope 1868