Ataenius
Ataenius is a genus of aphodiine dung beetles in the family Scarabaeidae. There are at least 290 described species in Ataenius.

xpda · 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
- EupariiniPBDB
- 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.
9 occurrences of Ataenius on record. 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
9 occurrences- Eocene89%
- Pleistocene11%
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
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The named rock units Ataenius has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
1,566 taxa- Brachycera3 sites
- Bruchus exhumatus3 sites
- Agabus florissantensis2 sites
- Amara powellii2 sites
- Aphaenogaster mayri2 sites
- Aphodius granarioides2 sites
- Bibio wickhami2 sites
- Carabidae2 sites
- Cardiophorus lithographus2 sites
- Curculio minusculus2 sites
- Dicranomyia (Dicranomyia) graciosa2 sites
- Dicranomyia (Dicranomyia) lobata2 sites
- Diptera2 sites
- Eatonisca tertiaria2 sites
- Entimini2 sites
- Evopes veneratus2 sites
- Formica robusta2 sites
- Geralophus antiquarius2 sites
- Geralophus lassatus2 sites
- Leptacinus leidyi2 sites
- Liometopum miocenicum2 sites
- Miomyrmex impactus2 sites
- Monogedania clunipes2 sites
- Mordellistena2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Ataenius, 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
9 references- A new extinct species of Ataenius Harold from Baltic amber (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Aphodiinae)1
- Environmental interpretation of fossil insect assemblages from MIS 5 at Ziegler Reservoir, Snowmass Village, Colorado1
- New Miocene Coleoptera from Florissant1
- Fossil Coleoptera from Florissant in the United States National Museum1
- Fossil Coleoptera from the Wilson Ranch near Florissant, Colorado1
- A report on some recent collections of fossil Coleoptera from the Miocene shales of Florissant1
- Bemerkungen über Coleopteren aus dem baltischen Bernstein1
- New fossil Coleoptera from Florissant, with notes on some already described1
- Adephagous and clavicorn Coleoptera from the Tertiary deposits at Florissant, Colorado with descriptions of a few other forms and a systematic list of the non-rhynchophorus Tertiary Coleoptera of North America1
Each of the 9 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 Ataenius
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- xpda
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Ataenius 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Ataenius”
- 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 itEupariini through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Harold 1867