Engraulis encrasicolus
The European anchovy is a forage fish somewhat related to the herring. It is a type of anchovy; anchovies are placed in the family Engraulidae. It lives off the coasts of Europe and Africa, including in the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azov. It is fished by humans throughout much of its range.

Jschop · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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- Sits inside
- EngraulisPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Clupeiformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Clupeiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Clupeiformes
Time the record covers
At least 1 million years on record.
The record covers at least 1.8 Mya to 774 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 129 ka.
4 occurrences of Engraulis encrasicolus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
4 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
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
1 formation
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Engraulis encrasicolus 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.
Engraulis encrasicolus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Engraulis encrasicolus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
69 taxa- Cepola4 sites
- Ceratoscopelus maderensis4 sites
- Deltentosteus4 sites
- Lesueurigobius4 sites
- Aphia3 sites
- Atherina boyeri3 sites
- Dentex3 sites
- Gadiculus argenteus3 sites
- Gobius3 sites
- Grammonus ater3 sites
- Hygophum benoiti3 sites
- Benthosema glaciale2 sites
- Carapus acus2 sites
- Chromis2 sites
- Diaphus holti2 sites
- Diaphus rafinesquii2 sites
- Diaphus taaningi2 sites
- Gaidropsarus2 sites
- Lampanyctus crocodilus2 sites
- Lobianchia dofleini2 sites
- Maurolicus muelleri2 sites
- Micromesistius poutassou2 sites
- Muraena conger2 sites
- Myctophum punctatum2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Engraulis encrasicolus, 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- Pleistocene marine fish invasions and paleoenvironmental reconstructions in the eastern Mediterranean3
- The Zanclean marine fish fauna and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of a coastal marine setting in the eastern Mediterranean1
Each of the 4 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Engraulis encrasicolus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Jschop
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Engraulis encrasicolus 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 itEngraulis through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)