Lampanyctus crocodilus
Lampanyctus crocodilus, the jewel lanternfish, is a lanternfish of the family Myctophidae, found in the west Mediterranean Sea and the north Atlantic Ocean. Bathypelagic between 400 and 2000 m.

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
- LampanyctusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Myctophiformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Myctophiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Myctophiformes
Time the record covers
At least 2.8 million years on record.
The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 774 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 129 ka.
12 occurrences of Lampanyctus crocodilus 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
12 occurrences- Pliocene17%
- Pleistocene83%
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
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The named rock units Lampanyctus crocodilus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Lampanyctus crocodilus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Lampanyctus crocodilus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
133 taxa- Ceratoscopelus maderensis11 sites
- Maurolicus muelleri11 sites
- Benthosema glaciale10 sites
- Gadiculus argenteus10 sites
- Hygophum benoiti10 sites
- Lobianchia dofleini9 sites
- Notoscopelus elongatus9 sites
- Diaphus holti8 sites
- Diaphus taaningi8 sites
- Micromesistius poutassou8 sites
- Myctophum punctatum8 sites
- Deltentosteus6 sites
- Lesueurigobius6 sites
- Scopelopsis pliocenicus6 sites
- Diaphus rafinesquii5 sites
- Electrona rissoi5 sites
- Gaidropsarus5 sites
- Hygophum hygomi5 sites
- Trachurus5 sites
- Vinciguerria poweriae5 sites
- Bellotia apoda4 sites
- Coelorinchus stellaris4 sites
- Dentex4 sites
- Diaphus4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Lampanyctus crocodilus, 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
5 references- Pleistocene fish otoliths from the Mediterranean Basin: a synthesis4
- Pleistocene marine fish invasions and paleoenvironmental reconstructions in the eastern Mediterranean3
- Paleobathymetric interpretation of the fish otoliths from the lower - middle quaternary deposits of Kephallonia and Zakynthos islands (Ionian Sea, Western Greece)2
- Données récentes sur Les téléostéens du Miocène et du Pliocéne d'Italie2
- The fossil otolith record of fishes (Vertebrata: Teleostei) in Greece1
Each of the 12 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 Lampanyctus crocodilus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Lampanyctus crocodilus · YPM:VZ:YPM ICH 002118
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 itLampanyctus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Risso 1810)