Myctophum affine
Myctophum affine, the metallic lanternfish, is a species of lanternfish native to the Atlantic Ocean. Myctophum affine grows to a length of 7.9 centimetres (3.1 in) SL.

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
- MyctophumPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Myctophiformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Myctophiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Myctophiformes
Time the record covers
At least 1.9 million years on record.
The record covers at least 7.246 Mya to 5.333 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 11.63 Mya to 2.58 Mya.
6 occurrences of Myctophum affine 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
6 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
5 formations
- Chagres Sandstone Formation2
- Nancy Point Formation1
- Bowden Formation1
- Gurabo Formation1
- Chagres Formation1
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The named rock units Myctophum affine has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Myctophum affine and its relatives
MioceneWhere Myctophum affine and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
104 taxa- Diaphus apalus4 sites
- Diaphus aequalis3 sites
- Diaphus rodriguezi3 sites
- Myctophum degraciai3 sites
- Benthosema pluridens2 sites
- Bolinichthys2 sites
- Bregmaceros2 sites
- Carapus2 sites
- Coelorinchus2 sites
- Diaphus2 sites
- Diaphus barrigonensis2 sites
- Diaphus dumerilii2 sites
- Diaphus multiserratus2 sites
- Diaphus pedemontanus2 sites
- Lepidophanes inflectus2 sites
- Lobianchia johnfitchi2 sites
- Myctophum arcanum2 sites
- Polyipnus2 sites
- "Dinematichthyinorum" smithvanizi1 site
- "Dinematichthyinorum" sp.1 site
- Albula1 site
- Apogon1 site
- Argentina1 site
- Ariosoma balearica1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Myctophum affine, 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- Otoliths of the Myctophidae from the Neogene of tropical America4
- Fossil deep-sea snapper (Actinopterygii: Lutjanidae) from the Last Interoceanic Central American Deep Strait (LICADS)1
- Remarkable dominance of myctophid otoliths in Upper Miocene Chagres Formation, Caribbean Panama1
Each of the 6 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 Myctophum affine
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Myctophum affine 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
- 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 itMyctophum through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Lütken 1892)