Buprestidae

Buprestidae is a family of beetles known as jewel beetles or metallic wood-boring beetles because of their glossy, iridescent colors. Larvae of this family are known as flatheaded borers. The family is among the largest of the beetles, with some 15,500 species known in 775 genera. In addition, almost 100 fossil species have been described.

Buprestidae

Scan by the Internet Archive · Public Domain · 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
jewel beetlePBDB
Sits inside
BuprestoideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 205 million years on record.

The record covers at least 205.7 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 227.3 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 2 of 395 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 8 of 395 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 5 of 395 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 10 of 395 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 55 of 395 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 13 of 395 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 23 of 395 occurrencesEocene — about 181 of 395 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 26 of 395 occurrencesMiocene — about 53 of 395 occurrencesPliocene — about 4 of 395 occurrencesPleistocene — about 13 of 395 occurrences232–224 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences224–216 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences216–209 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences209–201 Mya — about 1 occurrence201–193 Mya — about 2 occurrences185–178 Mya — about 4 occurrences178–170 Mya — about 2 occurrences170–162 Mya — about 3 occurrences162–155 Mya — about 3 occurrences155–147 Mya — about 7 occurrences147–139 Mya — about 11 occurrences131–124 Mya — about 2 occurrences124–116 Mya — about 29 occurrences116–108 Mya — about 13 occurrences108–100 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences100–93 Mya — about 6 occurrences93–85 Mya — about 4 occurrences85–77 Mya — about 1 occurrence77–70 Mya — about 2 occurrences70–62 Mya — about 4 occurrences62–54 Mya — about 22 occurrences54–46 Mya — about 41 occurrences46–39 Mya — about 115 occurrences39–31 Mya — about 25 occurrences31–23 Mya — about 23 occurrences23–15 Mya — about 11 occurrences15–7.7 Mya — about 40 occurrences7.7–0 Mya — about 21 occurrences205.7 Mya11.7 ka232 Mya0 Mya

395 occurrences of Buprestidae 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

395 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

48 formations

Messel — 49.93°N, 8.75°EUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°EEifel — 50.11°N, 6.82°EFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WFlorissant — 38.93°N, 105.24°WMenat — 46.10°N, 2.90°EDzun-Bain — 45.45°N, 99.13°ELulworth — 50.60°N, 1.95°WRott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ERott — 50.60°N, 7.25°EShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°EKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°EZaza — 53.30°N, 112.09°EHighbury Silts and Sands — 51.56°N, 0.06°WAnda-Khuduk — 45.39°N, 101.84°EOsinovo — 54.17°N, 100.31°EShar-Tolgoy — 46.10°N, 100.68°EArgun — 51.71°N, 113.39°EInsektenmergel — 47.47°N, 8.23°ESolnhofen — 48.91°N, 11.14°EDaohugou — 41.32°N, 119.24°EYixian — 41.54°N, 118.92°EYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°EDarmakan — 49.45°N, 129.50°EDarmakan — 49.42°N, 130.07°EBlackstone — 27.62°S, 152.75°ELa Pedrera de Rúbies — 42.02°N, 0.89°EAmka — 59.45°N, 140.35°E

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The named rock units Buprestidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 24 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 124 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Buprestidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Buprestidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

5,693 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 157 sites for Buprestidae, 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

92 references

Each of the 395 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. 80 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 content2

Picture of Buprestidae

Credit
Scan by the Internet Archive
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itBuprestoidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Leach 1815