Marcopoloichthys

Marcopoloichthys is an extinct genus of marine teleosteomorph ray-finned fish known from the Middle and Late Triassic of the former Tethys Ocean. It is the only genus in the family Marcopoloichthyidae. It was originally described based on specimens from both Italy and China, hence the name Marcopoloichthys, which references the medieval Venetian merchant Marco Polo, who traveled from Italy to China.

Marcopoloichthys

Uncredited · 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
MarcopoloichthyidaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 6.4 million years on record.

The record covers at least 243.43 Mya to 237 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 244.4 Mya to 233.6 Mya.

Middle Triassic — about 14 of 15 occurrencesMiddle TriassicLate Triassic — about 1 of 15 occurrencesLate Triassic245–244 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences244–244 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences244–243 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences243–243 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences243–243 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences243–242 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences242–242 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences242–241 Mya — about 1 occurrence241–241 Mya — about 2 occurrences241–241 Mya — about 2 occurrences241–240 Mya — about 2 occurrences240–240 Mya — about 2 occurrences240–239 Mya — about 1 occurrence239–239 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences239–239 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences239–238 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences238–238 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences238–237 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences237–237 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences237–237 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences237–236 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences236–236 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences236–235 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences235–235 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences235–235 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences235–234 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences234–234 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences234–233 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences243.43 Mya237 Mya244.9 Mya233.1 Mya

15 occurrences of Marcopoloichthys on record, most of them in the Middle Triassic. 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

15 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

Prosanto — 46.73°N, 9.72°EProsanto — 46.70°N, 9.84°EBesano — 45.91°N, 8.95°EVal Degano — 46.43°N, 12.99°ECunardo — 45.93°N, 8.69°EGuanling — 24.78°N, 104.33°ESciliar — 46.35°N, 12.02°E

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The named rock units Marcopoloichthys has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Marcopoloichthys and its relatives

Middle Triassic

Where Marcopoloichthys and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.

Found in the same rock

31 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Marcopoloichthys, 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

Each of the 15 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 Marcopoloichthys

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Marcopoloichthys was found in Smithsonian Open Access and Sketchfab.

MorphoSource 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 itMarcopoloichthyidae through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Tintori et al. 2008