Ichthyococcus
Ichthyococcus, the fireflyfishes, is a genus of deep-sea stomiiform fish. It is the only member of the family Ichthyococcidae.

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
- StomiiformesPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Stomiiformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Stomiiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Stomiiformes
Time the record covers
At least 8 million years on record.
The record covers at least 11.63 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 15.98 Mya to 2.58 Mya.
3 occurrences of Ichthyococcus on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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
3 occurrencesThese 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.
Ichthyococcus and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Ichthyococcus and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
67 taxa- Maurolicus muelleri3 sites
- Belone2 sites
- Chauliodus2 sites
- Cyclothone2 sites
- Engraulis2 sites
- Gadiculus argenteus2 sites
- Lampanyctus2 sites
- Tavania2 sites
- Acropoma1 site
- Aldrovandia1 site
- Argyropelecus hemigymnus1 site
- Arnoglossus1 site
- Atheresthes1 site
- Bathylagus1 site
- Benthodesmus1 site
- Benthosema glaciale1 site
- Ceratoscopelus1 site
- Ceratoscopelus maderensis1 site
- Clidoderma1 site
- Coelorhynchus1 site
- Diaphus1 site
- Diaphus hataii1 site
- Diaphus holti1 site
- Electrona rissoi1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Ichthyococcus, 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
3 references- Deep fish assemblage from the Middle Miocene Morozaki Group, southern part of Chita Penninsula, Aichi Prefecture, central Japan1
- Données récentes sur Les téléostéens du Miocène et du Pliocéne d'Italie1
- Biogeography and climatology of Pliocene and Messinian fossil fish of eastern-central Italy1
Each of the 3 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 Ichthyococcus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Ichthyococcus ovatus · UF:Fish:227879
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 itStomiiformes through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bonaparte 1841