Archaeognatha

The Archaeognatha are an order of apterygotes, commonly known as bristletails. Among extant insect taxa they are some of the most evolutionarily primitive; they appeared in the Middle Devonian period at about the same time as the arachnids. Specimens that closely resemble extant species have been found as both body and trace fossils in strata from the remainder of the Paleozoic Era and more recent periods. For historical reasons an alternative name for the order is Microcoryphia.

Archaeognatha

Bruce Marlin · 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
Also called
jumping bristletailsPBDB
Sits inside
InsectaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 382 million years on record.

The record covers at least 382.31 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 387.95 Mya to 0 Mya.

Devonian — about 1 of 82 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 4 of 82 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 11 of 82 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 82 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 3 of 82 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 82 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 82 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 82 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 82 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 5 of 82 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 7 of 82 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 82 occurrencesEocene — about 37 of 82 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 82 occurrencesMiocene — about 11 of 82 occurrencesPliocene — about 1 of 82 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 82 occurrences396–383 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences383–369 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences317–303 Mya — about 2 occurrences303–290 Mya — about 5 occurrences290–277 Mya — about 2 occurrences277–264 Mya — about 5 occurrences264–251 Mya — about 1 occurrence251–237 Mya — about 3 occurrences237–224 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences132–119 Mya — about 5 occurrences106–92 Mya — about 7 occurrences40–26 Mya — about 37 occurrences26–13 Mya — about 11 occurrences13–0 Mya — about 3 occurrences382.31 Mya11.7 ka396 Mya0 Mya

82 occurrences of Archaeognatha on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

82 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

11 formations

Mitina — 53.55°N, 87.25°EBursum — 34.84°N, 106.91°WMeride — 45.89°N, 8.95°ECarbondale — 41.22°N, 88.21°WWellington — 38.64°N, 97.21°WCommentry Shales — 46.29°N, 2.75°ERöt — 50.13°N, 9.90°EOnyx Marble — 35.10°N, 112.59°WMiyajima — 36.98°N, 139.82°EPanther Mountain — 42.43°N, 74.43°WKayitou — 25.76°N, 104.37°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Archaeognatha has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 61 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Archaeognatha and its relatives

Eocene

Where Archaeognatha and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

4,088 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 45 sites for Archaeognatha, 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

33 references

Each of the 82 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. 21 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 Archaeognatha

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

No 3D scan of Archaeognatha was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itInsecta through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Börner 1904)