Agabus

Agabus is a large genus of predatory aquatic beetles in the family Dytiscidae, proposed in 1817 by William Elford Leach and named after Agabus, an early follower of Christianity. The adult beetles are moderate-sized, 5 to 14 mm long. The genus is primarily Holarctic in distribution, with only a few species known from the Afrotropical and Neotropical realms. Three species of Agabus, namely A. clypealis, A. discicollis and A. hozgargantae are endangered according to the IUCN Red List. The division into subgenera is not widely accepted. However, a number of species groups are recognized after the works of David J. Larson and Anders N. Nilsson. The genus is probably polyphyletic or paraphyletic. In a recent study of mitochondrial DNA, Agabus was found paraphyletic with respect to several of the species groups of Platambus, a closely related genus in the tribe Agabini. Lately the taxonomy of the genus has been revised, and some groups of species were transferred from Agabus sensu stricto to other genera in the tribe Agabini.

Agabus

Uncredited · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
AgabinaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 33 million years on record.

The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 37.71 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Eocene — about 5 of 68 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 3 of 68 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 4 of 68 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 68 occurrencesPleistocene — about 55 of 68 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 2 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 2 occurrences35–33 Mya — about 1 occurrence28–27 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences26–24 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences17–15 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 1 occurrence12–10 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences10–9.0 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences9.0–7.7 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences7.7–6.4 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences6.4–5.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences3.8–2.6 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.6–1.3 Mya — about 21 occurrences1.3–0 Mya — about 33 occurrences33.9 Mya129 ka38.5 Mya0 Mya

68 occurrences of Agabus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

68 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

17 formations

Kap København — 82.47°N, 23.66°WKap København — 82.45°N, 24.10°WKap København — 82.39°N, 24.18°WFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WFlorissant — 38.93°N, 105.24°WRott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°EOler — 69.50°N, 158.50°ETsumori — 32.79°N, 130.86°EHighbury Silts and Sands — 51.56°N, 0.06°WCypris — 50.13°N, 12.52°EScarborough — 43.70°N, 79.24°WOokui — 36.34°N, 138.34°EKeremesit — 69.17°N, 158.12°EYoshino — 32.83°N, 130.64°ESaijo — 34.38°N, 132.72°EOyama — 33.25°N, 130.96°ETsubusagawa — 33.40°N, 131.35°EMizozono — 31.98°N, 130.74°EOlympia beds — 47.66°N, 122.43°WBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°W

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The named rock units Agabus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 25 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Agabus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Agabus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

2,142 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 44 sites for Agabus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

28 references

Each of the 68 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 16 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Agabus

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Agabus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAgabinae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Leach 1817