Pythonichthys

Pythonichthys is a genus of eels of the family Heterenchelyidae that occur in tropical waters of the eastern Pacific Ocean off of Panama and in the Atlantic Ocean near the Caribbean Sea and the west coast of Africa. It contains the following described species:Pythonichthys asodes Rosenblatt & Rubinoff, 1972 Pythonichthys macrurus (Regan, 1912) Pythonichthys microphthalmus (Regan, 1912) Pythonichthys sanguineus Poey, 1868

Pythonichthys

Charles Tate Reagan · 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
HeterenchelyidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Anguilliformes
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Anguilliformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Anguilliformes

Time the record covers

At least 35 million years on record.

The record covers at least 41.03 Mya to 5.333 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 48.07 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Eocene — about 11 of 15 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 15 occurrencesMiocene — about 3 of 15 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 15 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 15 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences47–46 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences46–44 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences44–43 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences43–41 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences41–40 Mya — about 2 occurrences40–38 Mya — about 2 occurrences38–36 Mya — about 1 occurrence36–35 Mya — about 1 occurrence35–33 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences24–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21–19 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences19–17 Mya — about 1 occurrence17–16 Mya — about 1 occurrence6.4–4.8 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences4.8–3.2 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences3.2–1.7 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences41.03 Mya5.333 Mya49 Mya1.7 Mya

15 occurrences of Pythonichthys 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

15 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

9 formations

Moodys Branch — 31.90°N, 88.69°WMoodys Branch — 31.89°N, 88.39°WCook Mountain — 30.61°N, 96.57°WCook Mountain — 31.33°N, 95.52°WYazoo — 31.93°N, 91.94°WCantaure — 11.97°N, 70.02°WBowden — 17.88°N, 76.28°WStone City — 30.67°N, 96.56°WPiney Point — 37.61°N, 76.76°WLacui — 41.75°S, 73.84°W“upper” Lisbon — 31.82°N, 88.24°W

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The named rock units Pythonichthys has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Pythonichthys and its relatives

Eocene

Where Pythonichthys and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

317 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Pythonichthys, 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

7 references

Each of the 15 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 Pythonichthys

Credit
Charles Tate Reagan
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Pythonichthys sanguineus · UF:Fish:222150

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 itHeterenchelyidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Poey 1868