Monomitopus
Monomitopus is a genus of cusk-eels. They are oviparous.

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
- NeobythitinaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivore, parasitePBDB, for Ophidiiformes
- Life habit
- nektobenthicPBDB, for Ophidiiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Ophidiiformes
Time the record covers
At least 38 million years on record.
The record covers at least 41.03 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 48.07 Mya to 774 ka.
9 occurrences of Monomitopus on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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
9 occurrences- Eocene44%
- Miocene33%
- Pleistocene22%
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
5 formations
- Lindos Bay Formation2
- Bells Creek Mudstone Formation2
- Waihao Greensand Formation2
- Elmore Formation · Bracklesham Group1
- Bells Creek Limestone Formation1
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The named rock units Monomitopus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Monomitopus and its relatives
EoceneWhere Monomitopus and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
246 taxa- Bregmaceros antiquus3 sites
- Diaphus altus3 sites
- Gaidropsarus3 sites
- Karrerichthys admirabilis3 sites
- Lampanyctodes mimiensis3 sites
- Lobianchia dofleini3 sites
- Nezumia mangapariensis3 sites
- Serranidarum dentatus3 sites
- Trachichthodes pulcher3 sites
- Antimyctophum konganaruensis2 sites
- Aphia2 sites
- Benthosema glaciale2 sites
- Cepola2 sites
- Ceratoscopelus maderensis2 sites
- Coelorinchus divulgatus2 sites
- Deltentosteus2 sites
- Dentex2 sites
- Diaphus (Lamprossa) pseudopulcher2 sites
- Diaphus draconis2 sites
- Diaphus excisus2 sites
- Diaphus holti2 sites
- Diaphus mirus2 sites
- Diaphus rafinesquii2 sites
- Diaphus taaningi2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Monomitopus, 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
4 references- Reconstruction of the fossil marine bony fish fauna (Teleostei) from the Eocene to Pleistocene of New Zealand by means of otoliths. With studies of Recent congroid, morid and trachinoid otoliths3
- Fish otoliths from the New Zealand Tertiary3
- Pleistocene marine fish invasions and paleoenvironmental reconstructions in the eastern Mediterranean2
- The Selsey Division (Bracklesham Group) at Lee-on-the-Solent, Gosport, (Hants)1
Each of the 9 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 Monomitopus
- 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
- Monomitopus vitiazi · NMV:Ichthyology:A29720-10
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Monomitopus”
- 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 itNeobythitinae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Alcock 1890