Xiphias

Xiphias

Uncredited · via Wikidata/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
sword fishPBDB
Sits inside
XiphiinaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 55 million years on record.

The record covers at least 56 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 59.24 Mya to 0 Mya.

Paleocene — about 1 of 10 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 10 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 10 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 0 of 10 occurrencesPliocene — about 4 of 10 occurrencesPleistocene — about 2 of 10 occurrences60–58 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences58–56 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences56–54 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences38–36 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences36–34 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences34–32 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences28–26 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences26–24 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences24–22 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences6.0–4.0 Mya — about 2 occurrences4.0–2.0 Mya — about 4 occurrences2.0–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences56 Mya11.7 ka60 Mya0 Mya

10 occurrences of Xiphias on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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

10 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

4 formations

Jan Juc — 38.33°S, 144.30°EYorktown — 35.36°N, 76.82°WAdaev — 44.11°N, 52.81°EAquia — 38.42°N, 77.26°W

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The named rock units Xiphias has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Xiphias and its relatives

Pliocene

Where Xiphias and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.

Found in the same rock

610 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Xiphias, 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

10 references

Each of the 10 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 content3

Picture of Xiphias

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Xiphias gladius · UF:Fish:171758

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itXiphiinae through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758