Channidae

The snakeheads are members of the freshwater perciform fish family Channidae, native to parts of Africa and Asia. These elongated, predatory fish are distinguished by their long dorsal fins, large mouths, and shiny teeth. They breathe air with gills, which allows them to migrate short distances over land. They have suprabranchial organs, which are primitive forms of labyrinth organs, that develop when they grow older. The two extant genera are Channa in Asia and Parachanna in Africa, consisting of more than 50 species.

Channidae

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
Also called
snakeheadPBDB
Sits inside
ChannoideiPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 37 million years on record.

The record covers at least 41.03 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 48.07 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Eocene — about 1 of 16 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 16 occurrencesMiocene — about 14 of 16 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 16 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 16 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences47–46 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences46–44 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences44–43 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences43–41 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences41–40 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences21–19 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences19–17 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 1 occurrence16–14 Mya — about 7 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 3 occurrences13–11 Mya — about 1 occurrence4.8–3.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences3.2–1.7 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences41.03 Mya3.6 Mya49 Mya1.7 Mya

16 occurrences of Channidae on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

16 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

3 formations

Upper Freshwater Molasse — 48.44°N, 11.04°EUpper Freshwater Molasse — 48.66°N, 10.23°EUpper Freshwater Molasse — 48.63°N, 11.80°EUpper Freshwater Molasse — 48.09°N, 10.03°EUpper Freshwater Molasse — 48.16°N, 10.11°EBrackwater Molasse — 48.48°N, 10.10°EKuldana — 33.63°N, 72.19°E

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The named rock units Channidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Channidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Channidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

326 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Channidae, 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

10 references

Each of the 16 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 Channidae

Credit
Brian Gratwicke
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Channidae 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 itChannoidei through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Berg 1940