Etmopteridae

The Etmopteridae are a family of sharks in the order Squaliformes, commonly known as lantern sharks. Their name comes from the presence of light-producing photophores on their bodies. The members of this family are small, under 90 cm (35 in) long, and are found in deep waters worldwide. The 45 species are placed in five genera. Three-quarters of the species are in the genus Etmopterus.

Etmopteridae

Etrusko25 · 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
SqualiformesPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Squaliformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Squaliformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Squaliformes

Time the record covers

At least 199 million years on record.

The record covers at least 201.4 Mya to 1.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 205.7 Mya to 774 ka.

Late Triassic — about 3 of 92 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 92 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 92 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 92 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 92 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 37 of 92 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 4 of 92 occurrencesEocene — about 19 of 92 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 92 occurrencesMiocene — about 26 of 92 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 92 occurrencesPleistocene — about 2 of 92 occurrences210–203 Mya — about 2 occurrences203–196 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences112–105 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences105–98 Mya — about 2 occurrences98–91 Mya — about 3 occurrences91–84 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences84–77 Mya — about 6 occurrences77–70 Mya — about 13 occurrences70–63 Mya — about 17 occurrences63–56 Mya — about 1 occurrence49–42 Mya — about 5 occurrences42–35 Mya — about 13 occurrences35–28 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences28–21 Mya — about 2 occurrences21–14 Mya — about 21 occurrences14–7.0 Mya — about 3 occurrences7.0–0 Mya — about 3 occurrences201.4 Mya1.8 Mya210 Mya0 Mya

92 occurrences of Etmopteridae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

92 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

25 formations

Marnes de Miretrain — 43.69°N, 1.13°WLaksarska Nova Ves — 48.59°N, 17.38°EGerhartsreit — 47.94°N, 13.01°EByala — 42.88°N, 27.90°ENeuhofen — 48.50°N, 14.28°ENorthumberland — 49.55°N, 124.70°WNorthumberland — 49.54°N, 124.71°WMarnes de Donzacq — 43.75°N, 0.84°WEbelsberg — 48.24°N, 13.99°ECubagua — 10.57°N, 64.24°WMiretrain Marl — 43.57°N, 1.11°WStromberg — 51.82°N, 8.19°EChagres Sandstone — 9.28°N, 80.04°WKuma — 45.10°N, 34.63°EFerriby — 54.15°N, 0.17°WJiesia — 55.08°N, 24.44°ELabguva — 54.92°N, 23.85°EBissex Hill — 13.22°N, 59.55°WBath — 13.18°N, 59.47°WOiching — 47.94°N, 13.01°EGerhartsreit — 47.80°N, 12.62°EHigashibessho — 36.60°N, 137.07°EIseyama — 36.42°N, 138.30°ETeplice — 50.40°N, 13.94°ETor — 55.28°N, 12.44°E

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The named rock units Etmopteridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. One further formation holds fewer occurrences and is not listed. 34 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Etmopteridae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Etmopteridae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

408 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 75 sites for Etmopteridae, 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

31 references

Each of the 92 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. 19 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 Etmopteridae

Credit
Etrusko25
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Etmopteridae 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 itSqualiformes through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Fowler 1941