Sparus aurata
The gilt-head bream, also known as the gilthead, dourade, gilt-head seabream, European seabream or silver seabream, is a species of marine ray-finned fish belonging to the family Sparidae, the seabreams or porgies. This fish is found in the Eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean. It is a highly esteemed food fish and an important species in aquaculture.

(c) Julien Renoult, some rights reserved (CC BY) · CC BY 4.0 · 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- Also called
- gilthead seabreamPBDB
- Sits inside
- SparusPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Time the record covers
At least 13 million years on record.
The record covers at least 13.82 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 20.45 Mya to 0 Mya.
11 occurrences of Sparus aurata on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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
11 occurrences- Miocene55%
- Pliocene18%
- Pleistocene9%
- Holocene18%
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
1 formation
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Sparus aurata has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Sparus aurata and its relatives
MioceneWhere Sparus aurata and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
333 taxa- Carcharias taurus7 sites
- Pagrus7 sites
- Carcharhinus egertoni6 sites
- Sparus cinctus6 sites
- Carcharhinus5 sites
- Dentex fossilis5 sites
- Hemipristis serra5 sites
- Isurus oxyrinchus5 sites
- Labrodon5 sites
- Scarus5 sites
- Sparidae5 sites
- Sphyrna zygaena5 sites
- Acanthurus4 sites
- Aprionodon lerichei4 sites
- Carcharhinidae4 sites
- Carcharhinus priscus4 sites
- Dasyatis cavernosa4 sites
- Dasyatis rugosa4 sites
- Galeocerdo aduncus4 sites
- Hypoprion acanthodon4 sites
- Myliobatis4 sites
- Negaprion eurybathrodon4 sites
- Sparus neogenus4 sites
- Sphyraena olisiponensis4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Sparus aurata, 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
9 references- Vertébrés (crocodiliens, poissons) du Miocène marin de l'Argarve occidentale3
- Animal remains from 17th century Carnide, Lisbon, Portugal.1
- Ictiofauna del Pliocè del barranc de sa Talaia (Mallorca, Illes Balears, Mediterrània Occidental). Implicacions paleoambientals1
- I paleositi a vertebrati fossili della Provinia di Pisa1
- Les vertébrés du Miocène moyen de Contres (Loir-et-Cher, France)1
- Povoado muculmano na Ponta do Castelo (Aljezur)1
- La stratigraphie du remplissage de la Grotte du Vallonnet.1
- Communicacoes dos Servicos Geológicos de Portugal1
- Les Mastodontes Miocènes du Portugal1
Each of the 11 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Sparus aurata
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- (c) Julien Renoult, some rights reserved (CC BY)
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Sparus aurata 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 itSparus through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758