Monochirus
Monochirus is a genus of small soles. It contains two species; one from the northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean, and the second from the South China Sea.

jujurenoult · CC BY 4.0 · 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
- SoleidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Pleuronectiformes
- Life habit
- nektobenthicPBDB, for Pleuronectiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Pleuronectiformes
Time the record covers
At least 1.7 million years on record.
The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 7.246 Mya to 2.58 Mya.
3 occurrences of Monochirus on record. 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.
Found in the same rock
42 taxa- Maurolicus muelleri3 sites
- Arnoglossus2 sites
- Arnoglossus sauvagei2 sites
- Boops2 sites
- Callionymus2 sites
- Capros aper2 sites
- Gadiculus2 sites
- Gobius2 sites
- Gobius xiphurus2 sites
- Sardina pilchardus2 sites
- Solea proocellata2 sites
- Synodus avus2 sites
- Trachurus2 sites
- Belone1 site
- Benthodesmus1 site
- Centriscus1 site
- Ceraroscopelus dorsalis1 site
- Diaphus edwardsi1 site
- Diaphus larteti1 site
- Diaphus microsomus1 site
- Diaphus vexillifer1 site
- Engraulis1 site
- Epigonus1 site
- Euthynus sp.1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Monochirus, 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- 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
- Messinian marine fish communities of the Mediterranean Sea1
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 content1
Picture of Monochirus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- jujurenoult
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Monochirus 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Monochirus”
- 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 itSoleidae through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Rafinesque 1814