Muraenesox cinereus
(Forsskål, 1775) · speciesAt a glance
Sources11 archives
Databases and archives Muraenesox cinereus's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation10 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility587 records↗
OBISOcean Biodiversity Information System730 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI76 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics76 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome ~1.11 Gbp↗
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.
The daggertooth pike conger (Muraenesox cinereus) or the darkfin pike eel, is a species of eel in the pike conger family, Muraenesocidae. They primarily live on soft bottoms in marine and brackish waters down to a depth of 800 m, but may enter freshwater. They are common to about 1.5 m in length, but may grow as long as 2.2 m. Daggertooth pike congers occur in the Red Sea, on the coast of the northern Indian Ocean, and in the West Pacific from Indochina to Japan. It has also invaded the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology1
Life cycle & reproduction1
Habitat & environment4
Uses & economy1
Other traits2
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 Muraenesox cinereus 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.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
The complete instruction manual Muraenesox cinereus carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
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 317 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 institutions15 of 36 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| National Marine Biodiversity Institute of Korealocation not on record | 100 |
| DEWlocation not on record | 33 |
| Australian National Fish Collectionlocation not on record | 32 |
| Sydney, AU | 30 |
| CASlocation not on record | 28 |
| Kagoshima University Museumlocation not on record | 24 |
| Paris, FR | 16 |
| Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territorylocation not on record | 13 |
| Cambridge, US | 11 |
| Washington, US | 11 |
| Ann Arbor, US | 10 |
| SEAOBISlocation not on record | 9 |
| Western Australian Museumlocation not on record | 8 |
| Los Angeles, US | 6 |
| NSMKlocation not on record | 4 |
| Frankfurt am Main | 4 |
| South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversitylocation not on record | 3 |
| Chicago, US | 3 |
| Mutare Museumlocation not on record | 2 |
| Natick, US | 2 |
| FishBaselocation not on record | 2 |
| Vancouver, CA | 2 |
| Helsinki, FI | 2 |
| University of Minnesota, James Ford Bell Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 1 |
| 1 | |
| Yokosuka City Museumlocation not on record | 1 |
| Stockholm, SE | 1 |
| Toronto, CA | 1 |
| National Natural History Collectionslocation not on record | 1 |
| Florida Museum of Natural History- Zoology, Paleontology & Paleobotanylocation not on record | 1 |
| Fisheries Research Laboratory, Mie Universitylocation not on record | 1 |
| Zoologisches Museum Hamburglocation not on record | 1 |
| QVMAGlocation not on record | 1 |
| DOI/NPS, Salem Maritime National Historic Sitelocation not on record | 1 |
| Museo civico La Terra e l'Uomo di Crocetta del Montellolocation not on record | 1 |
| Montgomery, US | 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 Muraenesox cinereus 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.