Galapagos Species Database
The Galapagos Species Database shares the information about the species from our Natural History Collections.
Diaphus theta
Linternilla, California headlightfish
Domain
Eukaryota
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Chordata
Class
Teleostei
Order
Myctophiformes
Family
Myctophidae
Genus
Diaphus
Species
theta
Taxon category: Accepted
Syn.: Diaphus protoculus (Gilbert, 1890),Myctophum protoculus Gilbert, 1890 (Horton et al., 2021).
Origin: Native
Distribution: Eastern Pacific: common in California Current region to 20°S, including Hawaii. Northwest Pacific: throughout subarctic-transitional waters to northern Japan (Froese and Pauly, 2021).
- Froese, R. D. Pauly. Eds. (2021) FishBase World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org,
- Grove, J.S. Long, D.J., Robertson, D.R. & Victor, B.C. (2022) List of Fishes of the Galapagos Archipelago, Ecuador. Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation, 39, 14–22.
- Horton, T. Horton, T., Kroh, A., Ahyong, S., Bailly, N., Boyko, C. B., Brandão, S. N., Gofas, S., Hooper, J. N. A., Hernandez, F., Holovachov, O., Mees, J., Molodtsova, T. N., Paulay, G., Decock, W., Dekeyzer, S., Poffyn, G., Vandepitte, L., Vanhoorne, B., Adlard, R., ... Zhao, Z. (2021) World Register of Marine Species. Available from https://www.marinespecies.org at VLIZ.
You are welcome to download and use the information found in this page, acknowledging its source.
This page should be cited as follows:
"Galapagos Species Database, Diaphus theta", dataZone. Charles Darwin Foundation, https://datazone.darwinfoundation.org/en/checklist/?species=24784. Accessed 5 November 2026.