Cantharidae

The soldier beetles (Cantharidae) are relatively soft-bodied, straight-sided beetles. They are cosmopolitan in distribution. One of the first described species has a color pattern reminiscent of the red coats of early British soldiers, hence the common name. They are also known commonly as leatherwings because of their soft elytra.

Cantharidae

fir0002 flagstaffotos [at] gmail.com Canon 20D + Sigma 150mm f/2.8 · GFDL 1.2 · 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
soldier beetlePBDB
Sits inside
ElateroideaPBDB
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 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 119.57 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Early Cretaceous — about 2 of 290 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 88 of 290 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 290 occurrencesEocene — about 157 of 290 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 15 of 290 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 19 of 290 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 290 occurrencesPleistocene — about 7 of 290 occurrences122–118 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences118–114 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences114–110 Mya — about 1 occurrence102–98 Mya — about 39 occurrences98–94 Mya — about 49 occurrences61–57 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences57–53 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences49–45 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences45–41 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences41–37 Mya — about 44 occurrences37–33 Mya — about 112 occurrences33–28 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences28–24 Mya — about 10 occurrences24–20 Mya — about 5 occurrences20–16 Mya — about 9 occurrences16–12 Mya — about 5 occurrences12–8.1 Mya — about 4 occurrences8.1–4.1 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences4.1–0 Mya — about 8 occurrences113.2 Mya129 ka122 Mya0 Mya

290 occurrences of Cantharidae 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

290 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

13 formations

Florissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WRott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°EShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°EUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°ETitusville Till — 41.62°N, 79.64°WBârnova-Muntele — 47.13°N, 27.66°ERandeck Maar — 48.57°N, 9.53°EMaíz Gordo — 23.53°S, 64.73°WKap København — 82.47°N, 23.66°WLas Penosas — 43.31°N, 4.45°WNaibuchi — 47.44°N, 142.76°EBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WMazantic Shale — 17.15°N, 92.70°W

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The named rock units Cantharidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 248 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Cantharidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Cantharidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

3,974 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 91 sites for Cantharidae, 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

119 references

Each of the 290 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. 107 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 Cantharidae

Credit
fir0002 flagstaffotos [at] gmail.com Canon 20D + Sigma 150mm f/2.8
Licence
GFDL 1.2
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Cantharidae 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 itElateroidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Imhoff 1856