Phycis
Phycis is a genus of phycid hakes from the North Atlantic, including the Mediterranean Sea.

J. F. Hennig · 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
- PhycidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Gadiformes
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Gadiformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Gadiformes
Time the record covers
At least 40 million years on record.
The record covers at least 41.03 Mya to 774 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 48.07 Mya to 129 ka.
30 occurrences of Phycis 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
30 occurrences- Eocene3%
- Oligocene6%
- Miocene54%
- Pliocene17%
- Pleistocene20%
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
6 formations
- Hrušky Formation3
- Eger Formation1
- Lindos Bay Formation1
- Calcare Massiccio Formation1
- Sant’Agata Fossili Formation1
- Argille Azzurre Formation1
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The named rock units Phycis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 22 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Phycis and its relatives
MioceneWhere Phycis and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
621 taxa- Dentex13 sites
- Lesueurigobius12 sites
- Otolithus labiatus12 sites
- Deltentosteus11 sites
- Lobianchia dofleini11 sites
- Diaphus taaningi10 sites
- Gadiculus argenteus10 sites
- Hygophum hygomi10 sites
- Maurolicus muelleri10 sites
- Merluccius merluccius9 sites
- Myctophum punctatum9 sites
- Notoscopelus elongatus9 sites
- Cepola rubescens8 sites
- Diaphus cavallonis8 sites
- Diaphus pedemontanus8 sites
- Hoplobrotula8 sites
- Parascombrops mutinensis8 sites
- Scopelopsis pliocenicus8 sites
- Carapus acus7 sites
- Cepola7 sites
- Ceratoscopelus maderensis7 sites
- Diaphus splendidus7 sites
- Pagellus7 sites
- Apogon6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 28 sites for Phycis, 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
15 references- Fish otoliths from the pre-evaporitic (Early Messinian) sediments of northern Italy: their stratigraphic and palaeobiogeographic significance5
- Pleistocene fish otoliths from the Mediterranean Basin: a synthesis4
- Otoliti fossili terziari dell'Emilia4
- Tortonian teleost otoliths from northern Italy: taxonomic synthesis and stratigraphic significance3
- Fish otoliths from the Middle Miocene of Kienberg at Mikulov, Czech REpublic, Vienna Basin: Their paleoenvironmental and paleogeographic significance3
- Les otolithes des téléostéens de l'oligo-miocène Belge2
- The Zanclean marine fish fauna and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of a coastal marine setting in the eastern Mediterranean1
- Pleistocene marine fish invasions and paleoenvironmental reconstructions in the eastern Mediterranean1
- Tortonian fish otoliths from turbiditic deposits in Northern Italy: Taxonomic and stratigraphic significance1
- A small fossil fish fauna, rich in Chlamydoselachus teeth, from the Late Pliocene of Tuscany (Siena, central Italy)1
- Lower Badenian fish otoliths of the Styrian and Lavanttal basins, with a revision of Weinfurter's type material1
- The otoliths from the middle Eocene of Osteroden near Bramsche, north-western Germany1
Each of the 30 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. 3 further references are not listed. 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 Phycis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- J. F. Hennig
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Phycis 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, “Phycis”
- 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 itPhycidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Walbaum 1792