Caenis
Caenis is a genus of mayflies. They are very small in size, sometimes with a body of only an 1/8 of an inch (3.2 mm).

James K. Lindsey · 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- Sits inside
- CaeniniPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At most 4.5 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 20.45 Mya and 15.98 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Caenis on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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
1 occurrences- Miocene100%
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
- Hachiya Formation · Kani Group1
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The named rock units Caenis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Caenis and its relatives
MioceneWhere Caenis and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
12 taxa- Camponotus1 site
- Cerambycidae1 site
- Cercopidae1 site
- Chironomidae1 site
- Formica1 site
- Ichneumonidae1 site
- Patanga1 site
- Pentatomidae1 site
- Phaneroptera1 site
- Plateumaris1 site
- Solenopsis1 site
- Vespidae1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Caenis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Caenis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- James K. Lindsey
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
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 itCaenini through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Stephens 1835