Argyropelecus aculeatus
Valenciennes, 1850 · speciesAt a glance
Sources10 archives
Databases and archives Argyropelecus aculeatus's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation4 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility3 837 records↗
OBISOcean Biodiversity Information System3 946 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI5 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics56 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
Catalogue of LifeCOLtaxonomy↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
Argyropelecus aculeatus, the lovely hatchetfish or Atlantic silver hatchetfish, is a species of fish in the family Sternoptychidae. It may exceed 70 mm standard length (SL). It lives in the mesopelagic zone of all oceans and performs diel vertical migration. A. aculeatus feeds on a large range of prey items; in the Gulf of Mexico ostracods and copepods dominated the diet of small individuals (<30 mm SL) and euphausiids, molluscs, and fish the diet of larger ones. The silvery coloration and bioluminescence of the lovely hatchetfish allows it to hide from predators and prey in the down-welling light of the twilight zone.Dianne J. Bray, 2011, Lovely Hatchetfish, Argyropelecus aculeatus, in Fishes of Australia, accessed 07 Oct 2014, http://www.fishesofaustralia.net.au/home/species/3938
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology2
Habitat & environment2
Uses & economy1
Other traits3
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Argyropelecus aculeatus has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil.
Record type7 783 records
Origin
Range
Depth
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Cultivated / Captivenot free-living
A living individual in a botanical garden, zoo or nursery — cultivated or kept, not free-living.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions21 of 49 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Cambridge, US | 826 |
| Washington, US | 309 |
| The Atlantic reference Centrelocation not on record | 249 |
| South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversitylocation not on record | 194 |
| FishBaselocation not on record | 161 |
| Florida Museum of Natural History- Zoology, Paleontology & Paleobotanylocation not on record | 149 |
| Sherkin Island Marine Stationlocation not on record | 140 |
| Sydney, AU | 118 |
| Copenhagen, DK | 114 |
| Zoologisches Museum Hamburglocation not on record | 76 |
| South Kensington, GB | 67 |
| Australian National Fish Collectionlocation not on record | 64 |
| Museums Victorialocation not on record | 63 |
| University of California San Diegolocation not on record | 60 |
| Texas Cooperative Wildlife Collectionlocation not on record | 58 |
| Paris, FR | 57 |
| New Haven, US | 55 |
| North Carolina Museum of Natural Scienceslocation not on record | 55 |
| Bergen, NO | 52 |
| CASlocation not on record | 37 |
| University of Texas Biodiversity Collections (UTBC)location not on record | 35 |
| Chicago, US | 33 |
| Chiba, JP | 24 |
| Museu Nacional/Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeirolocation not on record | 20 |
| Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de Sao Paulolocation not on record | 16 |
| Wuzhou, CN | 10 |
| Toronto, CA | 9 |
| Ann Arbor, US | 7 |
| SNSB-Zoologische Staatssammlung Münchenlocation not on record | 6 |
| Honolulu, US | 5 |
| 50location not on record | 4 |
| IEOlocation not on record | 4 |
| Los Angeles, US | 3 |
| Museo civico La Terra e l'Uomo di Crocetta del Montellolocation not on record | 3 |
| Natick, US | 3 |
| IEO-COMA-CSIClocation not on record | 3 |
| Mexico City, MX | 3 |
| CSIRO, Australian National Fish Collectionlocation not on record | 2 |
| University of Alabamalocation not on record | 2 |
| Tapachula, MX | 2 |
| ICM-CSIClocation not on record | 2 |
| College Station, US | 2 |
| Nova Scotia Museumlocation not on record | 1 |
| University of Nebraskalocation not on record | 1 |
| University of Minnesota, James Ford Bell Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 1 |
| UWFClocation not on record | 1 |
| NOCSlocation not on record | 1 |
| Montgomery, US | 1 |
| Frankfurt am Main | 1 |
Cultivated / Captivenot free-living
A living individual in a botanical garden, zoo or nursery — cultivated or kept, not free-living.
Where the DNA of Argyropelecus aculeatus was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.