Ammophila
Ammophila is the type genus of the subfamily Ammophilinae of the hunting wasp family Sphecidae. Ammophila is a large and cosmopolitan genus, with over 200 species, mostly occurring in the warmer regions of all continents apart from Antarctica.

Ivar Leidus · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
- AmmophilinaePBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At least 21 million years on record.
The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 12.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 37 Mya to 11.63 Mya.
4 occurrences of Ammophila on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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
4 occurrencesThese 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
2 formations
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The named rock units Ammophila has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Ammophila and its relatives
MioceneWhere Ammophila and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
259 taxa- Anisoptera2 sites
- Acanthoderes1 site
- Acmaeodera antholitha1 site
- Acmaeodera brevicollis1 site
- Acrididae1 site
- Adipterites obovatus1 site
- Alaus spectabilis1 site
- Alydidae1 site
- Amara pinguicula1 site
- Amara primigenia1 site
- Amara princeps1 site
- Andrena primaeva1 site
- Anomala fugax1 site
- Anthaxia doris1 site
- Anthaxia pallida1 site
- Anthophorites longaeva1 site
- Anthophorites mellona1 site
- Anthophorites veterana1 site
- Antliarhinites gracilis1 site
- Aphididae1 site
- Aphodius brevipennis1 site
- Aphrophora1 site
- Apidae1 site
- Apioninae1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Ammophila, 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
3 references- Heer, 18642
- Insectos del Mioceno inferior de Ribesalbes (Castellón, España). Hymenoptera1
- Fossil Hymenoptera from Florissant, Colorado1
Each of the 4 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. 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 content2
Picture of Ammophila
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Ivar Leidus
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Photogrammetry
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Ammophila Ammophila striata · ETHZ:ENT:0238701
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 itAmmophilinae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Kirby 1798