Elops

Elops is a genus of marine ray-finned fish found worldwide, and the only extant member of the ancient family Elopidae. They are commonly known as ladyfish, skipjacks, jack-rashes, or tenpounders.

Elops

SEFSC Pascagoula Laboratory; Collection of Brandi Noble, NOAA/NMFS/SEFSC · 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
Sits inside
ElopidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Elopiformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Elopiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Elopiformes

Time the record covers

At least 125 million years on record.

The record covers at least 125.77 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 132.6 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 13 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 13 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 13 occurrencesEocene — about 8 of 13 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 13 occurrencesMiocene — about 0 of 13 occurrencesPliocene — about 0 of 13 occurrencesPleistocene — about 3 of 13 occurrences135–131 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences131–126 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences126–122 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences59–54 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences54–50 Mya — about 2 occurrences50–45 Mya — about 2 occurrences45–41 Mya — about 2 occurrences4.5–0 Mya — about 4 occurrences125.77 Mya11.7 ka135 Mya0 Mya

13 occurrences of Elops on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

13 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

8 formations

London Clay — 51.40°N, 0.83°EMiretrain Marl — 43.57°N, 1.11°WBermont — 27.70°N, 82.50°WSpeeton Clay — 54.16°N, 0.24°WDonzacq Marl — 43.75°N, 0.84°WStone City — 30.67°N, 96.56°WHatchetigbee — 31.65°N, 88.09°WBashi — 32.36°N, 88.72°W

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The named rock units Elops has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Elops and its relatives

Eocene

Where Elops and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

596 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Elops, 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

9 references

Each of the 13 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 content2

Picture of Elops

Credit
SEFSC Pascagoula Laboratory; Collection of Brandi Noble, NOAA/NMFS/SEFSC
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Elops saurus · TCWC:Ichthyology:15173.02

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 itElopidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1766