Chilara taylori
Chilara taylori, the spotted cusk-eel, is a species of cusk-eel found along the eastern coast of the Pacific Ocean where it is found at depths down to around 280 metres (920 ft) from Washington, United States to Ecuador. This species grows to a length of 40.4 centimetres (15.9 in) TL. It is the only known member of its genus.

Helge Weissig · CC BY-SA 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
- spotted cusk eelPBDB
- Sits inside
- ChilaraPBDB
- Diet
- carnivore, parasitePBDB, for Ophidiiformes
- Life habit
- nektobenthicPBDB, for Ophidiiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Ophidiiformes
Time the record covers
At least 3.4 million years on record.
The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka.
9 occurrences of Chilara taylori 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
9 occurrences- Pliocene29%
- Pleistocene71%
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
4 formations
- Palos Verdes Sand Formation5
- Onzole Formation · Daule Group1
- Timms Point Silt Formation1
- Niguel Formation1
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The named rock units Chilara taylori has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Chilara taylori and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Chilara taylori and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
775 taxa- Seriphus politus8 sites
- Carcharodon carcharias7 sites
- Cymatogaster aggregata7 sites
- Triakis semifasciata7 sites
- Engraulis mordax6 sites
- Galeorhinus galeus6 sites
- Genyonemus lineatus6 sites
- Isurus oxyrinchus6 sites
- Myliobatis californica6 sites
- Ophidion scrippsae6 sites
- Porichthys notatus6 sites
- Carcharhinus5 sites
- Citharichthys sordidus5 sites
- Citharichthys stigmaeus5 sites
- Heterodontus francisci5 sites
- Lepidogobius lepidus5 sites
- Merluccius productus5 sites
- Paralichthys californicus5 sites
- Raja5 sites
- Sebastes (Sebastodes)5 sites
- Semicossyphus pulcher5 sites
- Squatina californica5 sites
- Atherinopsis californiensis4 sites
- Cancer productus4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Chilara taylori, 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
7 references- Fish remains, mostly otoliths and teeth, from the Palos Verdes Sand (Late Pleistocene) of California2
- Fish records from the Pleistocene of southern California in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum2
- Taphonomic and paleoecological analyses (mollusks and fishes) of the Súa Member condensed shelled, upper Onzole Formation (Early Pliocene, Ecuador)1
- Preliminary List of the Marine Fishes and Other Vertebrate Remains from the Late Pleistocene Palos Verdes Sand Formation at Costa Mesa, Orange County, California1
- A Late Pliocene macrofossil fauna of Newport Beach, Orange County, California1
- Otoliths and other fish remains from the Timms Point Silt (Early Pleistocene) at San Pedro, California1
- Otoliths and other fish remains from a Long Beach, California, Pliocene deposit1
Each of the 9 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 Chilara taylori
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Helge Weissig
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Chilara taylori 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 itChilara through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Girard 1858)