Otophidium
Otophidium is a genus of cusk-eels, part of the subfamily Ophidiinae in the family Ophidiidae. They are found in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific.

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
- OphidiidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivore, parasitePBDB, for Ophidiiformes
- Life habit
- nektobenthicPBDB, for Ophidiiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Ophidiiformes
Time the record covers
At least 7.1 million years on record.
The record covers at least 7.246 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 33.9 Mya to 11.7 ka.
7 occurrences of Otophidium on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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
7 occurrences- Oligocene5%
- Miocene23%
- Pliocene57%
- Pleistocene14%
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
4 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Otophidium 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.
Otophidium and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Otophidium and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
150 taxa- Citharichthys3 sites
- Apogon2 sites
- Atherinopsis californiensis2 sites
- Carcharhinus2 sites
- Chilara taylori2 sites
- Citharichthys sordidus2 sites
- Citharichthys stigmaeus2 sites
- Cymatogaster aggregata2 sites
- Electrona rissoi2 sites
- Engraulis mordax2 sites
- Galeorhinus galeus2 sites
- Genyonemus lineatus2 sites
- Gnathophis2 sites
- Hirtoscala tincta2 sites
- Lepidogobius lepidus2 sites
- Merluccius productus2 sites
- Myliobatis californica2 sites
- Nitidiscala indianorum2 sites
- Ophidion scrippsae2 sites
- Paralichthys californicus2 sites
- Porichthys2 sites
- Porichthys myriaster2 sites
- Porichthys notatus2 sites
- Roncador stearnsii2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Otophidium, 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
6 references- Otolith-based fishes form the Bowden Shell Bed (Pliocene) of Jamaica: Systematics and Palaeoecology2
- Taphonomic and paleoecological analyses (mollusks and fishes) of the Súa Member condensed shelled, upper Onzole Formation (Early Pliocene, Ecuador)1
- Bathymetric distribution of Miocene to Pleistocene Caribbean teleostean fishes from the coast of Panama and Costa Rica1
- Les otolithes des téléostéens de l'oligo-miocène Belge1
- Fish remains, mostly otoliths and teeth, from the Palos Verdes Sand (Late Pleistocene) of California1
- Otoliths and other fish remains from a Long Beach, California, Pliocene deposit1
Each of the 7 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 Otophidium
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Otophidium 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, “Otophidium”
- 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 itOphidiidae through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gill 1885