Caelifera

The Caelifera are a suborder of orthopteran insects. They include the grasshoppers and grasshopper-like insects, as well as other superfamilies classified with them: the ground-hoppers (Tetrigoidea) and pygmy mole crickets (Tridactyloidea). The latter should not be confused with the mole crickets (Gryllotalpidae), which belong to the other Orthopteran suborder Ensifera.

Caelifera

Dinesh Valke from Thane, India · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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
OrthopteraPBDB
Diet
grazer, herbivorePBDB
Life habit
ground dwelling, gregariousPBDB
Motility
fast-movingPBDB
Vision
well-developedPBDB
Environment
terrestrialPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 251 million years on record.

The record covers at least 251.902 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 254.14 Mya to 0 Mya.

Permian — about 2 of 356 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 356 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 20 of 356 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 11 of 356 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 59 of 356 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 5 of 356 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 12 of 356 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 64 of 356 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 28 of 356 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 7 of 356 occurrencesEocene — about 58 of 356 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 14 of 356 occurrencesMiocene — about 58 of 356 occurrencesPliocene — about 4 of 356 occurrencesPleistocene — about 10 of 356 occurrences259–251 Mya — about 2 occurrences251–242 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences242–233 Mya — about 19 occurrences233–225 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences225–216 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences216–207 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences207–199 Mya — about 16 occurrences199–190 Mya — about 6 occurrences190–181 Mya — about 35 occurrences181–173 Mya — about 12 occurrences173–164 Mya — about 4 occurrences164–156 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences156–147 Mya — about 8 occurrences147–138 Mya — about 8 occurrences138–130 Mya — about 2 occurrences130–121 Mya — about 4 occurrences121–112 Mya — about 53 occurrences104–95 Mya — about 22 occurrences95–86 Mya — about 6 occurrences69–60 Mya — about 3 occurrences60–52 Mya — about 7 occurrences52–43 Mya — about 29 occurrences43–35 Mya — about 21 occurrences35–26 Mya — about 13 occurrences26–17 Mya — about 24 occurrences17–8.6 Mya — about 38 occurrences8.6–0 Mya — about 19 occurrences251.902 Mya11.7 ka259 Mya0 Mya

356 occurrences of Caelifera on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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

356 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

Crato — 7.13°S, 39.70°WGreen River — 41.55°N, 109.51°WGreen River — 39.54°N, 108.12°WGreen River — 39.53°N, 107.95°WMadygen — 40.05°N, 70.21°EFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WFlorissant — 38.93°N, 105.24°WLilstock — 52.06°N, 2.14°WLilstock — 51.19°N, 3.38°WUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°ESolnhofen — 48.91°N, 11.14°ENiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°EMenat — 46.10°N, 2.90°EPosidonia Shale — 52.36°N, 10.75°EPosidonia Shale — 52.27°N, 10.68°EZaza — 53.30°N, 112.09°EThermalsinterkalk — 48.41°N, 9.55°EShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°ECharmouth Mudstone — 50.73°N, 2.92°WWeald Clay — 51.13°N, 0.35°WLulworth — 50.60°N, 1.95°WKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°ERenova — 45.21°N, 112.18°WItat — 56.17°N, 93.17°ELaiyang — 36.78°N, 120.67°ELaiyang — 36.76°N, 120.64°EBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WMoler — 56.84°N, 9.00°EDzhil — 42.70°N, 77.20°ECheremkhovskaya — 54.17°N, 100.31°E

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The named rock units Caelifera 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. 145 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Caelifera and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Caelifera and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

7,031 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 197 sites for Caelifera, 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

130 references

Each of the 356 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. 118 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 Caelifera

Credit
Dinesh Valke from Thane, India
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
3dhdscan
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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 itOrthoptera through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ander 1936