Syngnathidae

The Syngnathidae is a family of fish which includes seahorses, pipefishes, and seadragons. The family name comes from Ancient Greek σύν (sún), meaning "together", and γνάθος (gnáthos), meaning "jaw", referring to the fused jaw that the entire family have in common.

Syngnathidae

Yellow.Cat from Roma, Italy · CC BY 2.0 · 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
Sits inside
SyngnathoideiPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 59 million years on record.

The record covers at least 61.66 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 66 Mya to 1.8 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 0 of 80 occurrencesPaleocene — about 1 of 80 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 3 of 80 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 15 of 80 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 40 of 80 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 18 of 80 occurrencesPleistocene — about 3 of 80 occurrences67–65 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences65–63 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences63–61 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences56–54 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences52–49 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences34–32 Mya — about 5 occurrences32–29 Mya — about 5 occurrences29–27 Mya — about 5 occurrences27–25 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences25–23 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences23–21 Mya — about 2 occurrences21–18 Mya — about 1 occurrence18–16 Mya — about 1 occurrence16–14 Mya — about 2 occurrences14–12 Mya — about 4 occurrences12–9.4 Mya — about 5 occurrences9.4–7.2 Mya — about 6 occurrences7.2–5.0 Mya — about 20 occurrences5.0–2.7 Mya — about 15 occurrences2.7–516 ka Mya — about 4 occurrences61.66 Mya2.58 Mya67 Mya516 ka

80 occurrences of Syngnathidae 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

80 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

16 formations

Monterey — 33.71°N, 118.31°WMonterey — 34.08°N, 118.17°WMonterey — 34.61°N, 120.44°WMonterey — 34.49°N, 120.23°WModelo — 34.15°N, 118.47°WModelo — 34.13°N, 118.42°WPuente — 33.84°N, 117.82°WPuente — 34.11°N, 117.81°WDol — 46.24°N, 14.57°EPshekha Horizon — 44.54°N, 41.94°EPshekha Horizon — 44.74°N, 39.81°EMenelite — 49.93°N, 22.02°EMakrilia — 35.04°N, 25.76°EFinikia — 35.30°N, 25.27°EPakhna — 34.76°N, 32.92°EEbelsberg — 48.21°N, 14.22°ETamiami — 27.34°N, 82.51°WZuramakent horizon — 43.66°N, 43.89°ERaz-el-Ain — 35.71°N, 0.64°WCoraline Limestone — 35.84°N, 14.42°ETsurevsky — 44.41°N, 39.79°EZdanice-Hustopece — 49.13°N, 16.86°E

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The named rock units Syngnathidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 54 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Syngnathidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Syngnathidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

1,207 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 57 sites for Syngnathidae, 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

40 references

Each of the 80 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. 28 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 content2

Picture of Syngnathidae

Credit
Yellow.Cat from Roma, Italy
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Syngnathidae indet. · muvp:MUVP 698

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 itSyngnathoidei through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.