Diaphus brachycephalus

DEEPEND Consortium (Deep Pelagic Nekton Dynamics of the Gulf of Mexico) · CC BY 4.0 · via GBIF. 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
- DiaphusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Myctophiformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Myctophiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Myctophiformes
Time the record covers
At most 2.8 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 5.333 Mya and 2.58 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Diaphus brachycephalus on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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
2 occurrences- Pliocene100%
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
2 formations
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The named rock units Diaphus brachycephalus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Diaphus brachycephalus and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Diaphus brachycephalus and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
78 taxa- Diaphus aequalis2 sites
- Diaphus depressifrons2 sites
- Diaphus dumerilii2 sites
- "Dinematichthyinorum" smithvanizi1 site
- "Dinematichthyinorum" sp.1 site
- Albula1 site
- Apogon1 site
- Ariosoma balearica1 site
- Atherinomorus stipes1 site
- Bathyclupea1 site
- Belonidae1 site
- Bolinichthys1 site
- Bothidae1 site
- Bregmaceros1 site
- Brotula1 site
- Carapus1 site
- Citharichthys1 site
- Cynoglossidae1 site
- Diaphus apalus1 site
- Diaphus barrigonensis1 site
- Diaphus capax1 site
- Diaphus hataii1 site
- Diaphus paxtoni1 site
- Diaphus problematicus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Diaphus brachycephalus, 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
2 references- Otoliths of the Myctophidae from the Neogene of tropical America1
- Otolith-based fishes form the Bowden Shell Bed (Pliocene) of Jamaica: Systematics and Palaeoecology1
Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1

Picture of Diaphus brachycephalus
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- DEEPEND Consortium (Deep Pelagic Nekton Dynamics of the Gulf of Mexico)
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Diaphus brachycephalus 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itDiaphus through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Taning 1928