Engraulidae
Anchovies are small, common forage fish of the family Engraulidae. Most species are found in marine waters, but several will enter brackish water, and some in South America are restricted to fresh water.

Uncredited · 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
- ClupeoideiPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Clupeiformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Clupeiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Clupeiformes
Time the record covers
At least 37 million years on record.
The record covers at least 37.71 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 41.03 Mya to 0 Mya.
45 occurrences of Engraulidae 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
45 occurrences- Eocene4%
- Miocene13%
- Pliocene30%
- Pleistocene50%
- Holocene3%
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
- Gutingkeng Formation5
- Palos Verdes Sand Formation4
- Lindos Bay Formation3
- Yokosuka Formation2
- Otuma Formation1
- Gatun Formation1
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The named rock units Engraulidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 22 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Engraulidae and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Engraulidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
940 taxa- Engraulis11 sites
- Engraulis japonicus11 sites
- Maurolicus muelleri10 sites
- Cymatogaster aggregata9 sites
- Diaphus9 sites
- Engraulis mordax9 sites
- Galeorhinus galeus9 sites
- Genyonemus lineatus9 sites
- Gobiidae9 sites
- Gobius9 sites
- Porichthys notatus9 sites
- Seriphus politus9 sites
- Trachurus9 sites
- Ceratoscopelus maderensis8 sites
- Conger8 sites
- Micromesistius poutassou8 sites
- Raja8 sites
- Triakis semifasciata8 sites
- Apogon7 sites
- Bregmaceros7 sites
- Citharichthys7 sites
- Citharichthys sordidus7 sites
- Citharichthys stigmaeus7 sites
- Myliobatis californica7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 41 sites for Engraulidae, 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
24 references- 541. Some Pleistocene fish-otoliths from the Boso and Miura peninsulas6
- Early Pliocene otolith assemblages from the outer-shelf environment reveal the establishment of mesopelagic fish fauna over 3 million years ago in southwestern Taiwan5
- Données récentes sur Les téléostéens du Miocène et du Pliocéne d'Italie4
- Pleistocene marine fish invasions and paleoenvironmental reconstructions in the eastern Mediterranean3
- Biogeography and climatology of Pliocene and Messinian fossil fish of eastern-central Italy3
- Fish remains, mostly otoliths and teeth, from the Palos Verdes Sand (Late Pleistocene) of California3
- Fish otolith record reveals possible tropical-subtropical fish community in temperate Japan during the exceptionally warm Last Interglacial period2
- New perspectives on late Tethyan Neogene biodiversity development of fishes based on Miocene (~ 17 Ma) otholiths from southwestern India2
- Ricerche sui Pesci Fossili di Chiavòn (Strati di Sotzka -- Miocene Inferiore)2
- The Zanclean marine fish fauna and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of a coastal marine setting in the eastern Mediterranean1
- Reconstruction of the fossil marine bony fish fauna (Teleostei) from the Eocene to Pleistocene of New Zealand by means of otoliths. With studies of Recent congroid, morid and trachinoid otoliths1
- Otoliths from the Miocene of West Africa, primarily from the Mandorové Formation of Gabon1
Each of the 45 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. 12 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 Engraulidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Engraulidae 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Anchovy”
- 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 itClupeoidei through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.