Mugil cephalus

The striped mullet is an important food fish species in the mullet family Mugilidae. It is found in coastal temperate, tropical and subtropical waters worldwide. Its length is typically 30 to 75 centimetres. It is known with numerous English names, including the flathead mullet, flathead grey mullet, striped mullet, black mullet, bully mullet, common mullet, grey mullet, sea mullet and mullet, among others.

Mugil cephalus

Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 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
MugilPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 15 million years on record.

The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.

Oligocene — about 0 of 5 occurrencesMiocene — about 3 of 5 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 5 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 5 occurrencesPleistocene24–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences7.8–7.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.1–6.3 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences6.3–5.5 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences5.5–4.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences785 ka–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences15.98 Mya11.7 ka23.5 Mya0 Mya

5 occurrences of Mugil cephalus on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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

5 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

2 formations

Cantaure — 11.97°N, 70.02°WSocorro — 11.38°N, 69.72°W

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The named rock units Mugil cephalus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Mugil cephalus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Mugil cephalus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

185 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Mugil cephalus, 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

Each of the 5 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 Mugil cephalus

Credit
Diego Delso
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC0 Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

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

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 itMugil through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758