Halosauridae

Halosaurs are eel-shaped fishes found only at great ocean depths. As the family Halosauridae, halosaurs are one of two families within the order Notacanthiformes; the other being the deep-sea spiny eels, Notacanthidae. Halosaurs are thought to have a worldwide distribution, with some 17 species in three genera represented. Only a handful of specimens have been observed alive, all in chance encounters with remotely operated underwater vehicles.

Halosauridae

NOAA Ocean Exploration & Research from USA · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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
NotacanthiformesPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 82 million years on record.

The record covers at least 93.9 Mya to 11.63 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 5.333 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 10 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 5 of 10 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 10 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 10 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 10 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 3 of 10 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 10 occurrences102–99 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences99–96 Mya — about 2 occurrences96–93 Mya — about 1 occurrence93–89 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences86–83 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences83–79 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences79–76 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences76–73 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences73–69 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences50–46 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences46–43 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences43–40 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences40–36 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences36–33 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences30–27 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences27–23 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences23–20 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences20–17 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences17–13 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences13–10 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences10–6.7 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences6.7–3.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences93.9 Mya11.63 Mya102 Mya3 Mya

10 occurrences of Halosauridae 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

10 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

6 formations

Zig Zag Chalk — 50.86°N, 0.07°EZig Zag Chalk — 50.90°N, 0.53°WZig Zag Chalk — 51.33°N, 0.49°EModelo — 34.13°N, 118.48°WKreyenhagen — 34.99°N, 119.34°WBaumberge — 51.96°N, 7.36°EHolleywell, New Pit, Lewes — 51.30°N, 0.39°ENavidad — 33.90°S, 71.84°W

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The named rock units Halosauridae 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.

Halosauridae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

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

Found in the same rock

247 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Halosauridae, 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

8 references

Each of the 10 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 content1

Picture of Halosauridae

Credit
NOAA Ocean Exploration & Research from USA
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Halosauridae 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 itNotacanthiformes through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.