This dataset contains occurrence records for ten Southern Ocean myctophid fish species that have been downloaded and cleaned from the online biodiversity repository GBIF. As well as providing GBIF documented metadata for each occurrence record, this dataset provides environmental conditions - specifically bathymetry, temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen and net primary productivity - for each record. Both sea-surface and depth-specific values for the temperature, salinity and oxygen variables are given in separate data files. A third data file of corresponding background points and their associated environmental conditions is also provided. Together these data were used as input files for the MaxEnt ecological niche models within the peer reviewed article: Freer JJ, Tarling GA, Collins MA, Partridge JC, Genner MJ (2020) Estimating circumpolar distributions of lanternfish using 2D and 3D ecological niche models, Marine Ecology Progress Series.