Aquarius

Aquarius is a genus of water striders found predominantly in the northern hemisphere. Formerly a subgenus, Aquarius was elevated to generic rank in 1990 on the basis of phylogenetic analysis. These are among the world's largest water striders, with females averaging 12–17 mm (0.47–0.67 in) long and males roughly 10–30% smaller, depending on the exact species. An outlier is A. elongatus where both sexes typically are about 24 mm (0.94 in), roughly the same as certain Cylindrostethus, and second only to Gigantometra gigas.

Aquarius

Alvesgaspar · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
GerrinaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 17 million years on record.

The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 15.98 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 37.71 Mya to 11.63 Mya.

Eocene — about 4 of 5 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 5 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 5 occurrencesMiocene38–37 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences36–36 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences35–34 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences33.9 Mya15.98 Mya38.2 Mya11.1 Mya

5 occurrences of Aquarius on record. 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

5 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

1 formation

Niubao — 32.02°N, 89.77°ENiubao — 31.80°N, 87.76°E

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The named rock units Aquarius has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Found in the same rock

10 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Aquarius, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

4 references

Each of the 5 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 content1

Picture of Aquarius

Credit
Alvesgaspar
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Aquarius 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 itGerrinae through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Schellenberg 1800