Bombyliidae

The Bombyliidae are a family of flies, commonly known as bee flies. Some are colloquially known as bomber flies. Adults generally feed on nectar and pollen, some being important pollinators. Larvae are mostly parasitoids of other insects.

Bombyliidae

Richard Bartz , Munich aka Makro Freak · CC BY-SA 2.5 · 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
bee flyPBDB
Sits inside
HeterodactylaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 113 million years on record.

The record covers at least 113.2 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 121.4 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 73 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 10 of 73 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 73 occurrencesEocene — about 38 of 73 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 14 of 73 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 7 of 73 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 73 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 73 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences120–116 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences116–111 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences103–99 Mya — about 2 occurrences99–95 Mya — about 6 occurrences95–91 Mya — about 2 occurrences62–58 Mya — about 1 occurrence58–54 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences54–50 Mya — about 2 occurrences50–45 Mya — about 2 occurrences45–41 Mya — about 2 occurrences41–37 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences37–33 Mya — about 31 occurrences33–29 Mya — about 2 occurrences29–25 Mya — about 7 occurrences25–21 Mya — about 5 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 1 occurrence17–12 Mya — about 2 occurrences8.3–4.1 Mya — about 4 occurrences4.1–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences113.2 Mya11.7 ka124 Mya0 Mya

73 occurrences of Bombyliidae 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

73 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

12 formations

Florissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WFlorissant — 38.93°N, 105.24°WNiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°EArgiles d'lignite du Soissonnais — 49.33°N, 2.66°ERenova — 45.21°N, 112.18°WRott — 50.75°N, 7.26°EKishenehn — 48.39°N, 113.70°WLatah — 47.69°N, 117.47°WMessel — 49.93°N, 8.75°EMenat — 46.10°N, 2.90°EGurvan-Eren — 46.38°N, 93.95°EBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WRita Blanca — 35.71°N, 102.45°W

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The named rock units Bombyliidae 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.

Bombyliidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Bombyliidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

4,121 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 43 sites for Bombyliidae, and this reads all of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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

44 references

Each of the 73 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. 32 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 Bombyliidae

Credit
Richard Bartz , Munich aka Makro Freak
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Bombyliidae 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 itHeterodactyla through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1802