Serrasalmidae

The Serrasalmidae (serrasalmids) are a family of characiform fishes native to freshwater habitats of South America. They include more than 90 species. The name means "serrated salmon family", which refers to the serrated keel running along the belly of these fish. Fish classified as Serrasalmidae are also known by these common names: pacu, piranha, and silver dollar. These common names generally designate differing dental characteristics and feeding habits.

Serrasalmidae

Jonas Hansel (jonashansel@gmail.com) · 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
CharacoideiPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
freshwaterPBDB, for Characiformes

Time the record covers

At least 52 million years on record.

The record covers at least 56 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 59.24 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Paleocene — about 1 of 16 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 16 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 16 occurrencesMiocene — about 12 of 16 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 3 of 16 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 16 occurrences60–58 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences58–56 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences56–54 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–19 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences19–17 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences17–15 Mya — about 2 occurrences15–13 Mya — about 4 occurrences13–11 Mya — about 2 occurrences11–9.3 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences9.3–7.3 Mya — about 1 occurrence7.3–5.4 Mya — about 1 occurrence5.4–3.4 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences3.4–1.4 Mya — about 2 occurrences56 Mya3.6 Mya60 Mya1 Mya

16 occurrences of Serrasalmidae 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

16 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

7 formations

Pebas — 3.74°S, 73.25°WCastilletes — 11.95°N, 71.27°WItuzaingo — 31.68°S, 60.42°WItuzaingo — 31.63°S, 60.33°WCaujarao — 11.50°N, 69.52°WSan Gregorio — 11.30°N, 70.24°WWare — 11.85°N, 71.32°WCayara — 19.05°S, 66.53°W

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The named rock units Serrasalmidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Serrasalmidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Serrasalmidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

153 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Serrasalmidae, 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 16 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 Serrasalmidae

Credit
Jonas Hansel (jonashansel@gmail.com)
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Serrasalmidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itCharacoidei through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Günther 1864