Megalops

Tarpon are fish of the genus Megalops. They are the only extant members of the family Megalopidae. Of the two species, one is native to the Atlantic, and the other to the Indo-Pacific Oceans.

Megalops

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
MegalopidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Elopiformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Elopiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Elopiformes

Time the record covers

At least 98 million years on record.

The record covers at least 100.5 Mya to 1.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 110.1 Mya to 774 ka.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 12 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 12 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 12 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 12 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 2 of 12 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 7 of 12 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 12 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 12 occurrences112–109 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences109–105 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences105–101 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences101–97 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences56–52 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences52–49 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences49–45 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences30–26 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences26–22 Mya — about 2 occurrences22–19 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences19–15 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences15–11 Mya — about 4 occurrences11–7.5 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences7.5–3.7 Mya — about 1 occurrence3.7–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence100.5 Mya1.8 Mya112 Mya0 Mya

12 occurrences of Megalops on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

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

9 formations

Calvert — 37.93°N, 77.51°WCalvert — 38.16°N, 76.83°WJan Juc — 38.33°S, 144.30°EAlachua — 29.55°N, 82.52°WBermont — 27.70°N, 82.50°WPungo River — 35.40°N, 76.80°WTlayúa — 18.59°N, 97.90°WLondon Clay — 51.40°N, 0.83°EChoptank — 38.16°N, 76.83°WEastover — 38.16°N, 76.83°W

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The named rock units Megalops 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.

Megalops and its relatives

Miocene

Where Megalops and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

768 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Megalops, 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

9 references

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 Megalops

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Peromyscus megalops auritus · UMMZ:mammals:109059

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 itMegalopidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lacépède 1803