Dactylopus dactylopus
(Valenciennes, 1837) · speciesAt a glance
Sources9 archives
Databases and archives Dactylopus dactylopus's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation5 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility697 records↗
OBISOcean Biodiversity Information System779 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI21 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics25 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
Catalogue of LifeCOLtaxonomy↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
Dactylopus dactylopus, known commonly as the Fingered dragonet, is a species of marine fish in the family Callionymidae. The Fingered dragonet is widespread throughout the tropical waters of the central Indo-Pacific region from Indonesia to Palau Islands. It is found at depths of from 1 to and prefers sandy or muddy substrates, often with weed growth.Myers, R.F., 1999. Micronesian reef fishes: a comprehensive guide to the coral reef fishes of Micronesia, 3rd revised and expanded edition. Coral Graphics, Barrigada, Guam. 330 p. This species reaches a length of 30 cm TL.Allen, G.R. and R. Swainston, 1988. The marine fishes of north-western Australia: a field guide for anglers and divers. Western Australian Museum, Perth. 201 p. This species can be found in the aquarium trade.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology1
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 Dactylopus dactylopus 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 type1 476 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 institutions10 of 25 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Australian National Fish Collectionlocation not on record | 62 |
| Natick, US | 51 |
| Western Australian Museumlocation not on record | 41 |
| CASlocation not on record | 32 |
| DEWlocation not on record | 25 |
| Sydney, AU | 23 |
| Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territorylocation not on record | 21 |
| Washington, US | 18 |
| Kagoshima University Museumlocation not on record | 11 |
| Louisiana State University, Museum of Zoologylocation not on record | 8 |
| Paris, FR | 5 |
| Museums Victorialocation not on record | 4 |
| 3 | |
| CSIRO, Australian National Fish Collectionlocation not on record | 3 |
| SEAOBISlocation not on record | 2 |
| Ann Arbor, US | 2 |
| Fisheries Research Laboratory, Mie Universitylocation not on record | 2 |
| Honolulu, US | 1 |
| Los Angeles, US | 1 |
| DOI/NPS, Salem Maritime National Historic Sitelocation not on record | 1 |
| Copenhagen, DK | 1 |
| FishBaselocation not on record | 1 |
| Toronto, CA | 1 |
| University of Alberta Museumslocation not on record | 1 |
| University of California San Diegolocation not on record | 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 Dactylopus dactylopus 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.