Cantharis
Cantharis is a large genus of soldier beetles in the family Cantharidae. They are a carnivorous genus with narrow and soft elytra. They live in meadows.

Charles J. Sharp · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
- CanthariniPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At least 33 million years on record.
The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 37.71 Mya to 11.7 ka.
32 occurrences of Cantharis on record. 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
32 occurrences- Eocene44%
- Oligocene34%
- Miocene13%
- Pleistocene9%
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
3 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Cantharis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 22 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
2,390 taxa- Apidae4 sites
- Entiminae4 sites
- Plecia hypogaea4 sites
- Plecia pinguis4 sites
- Anisoptera3 sites
- Anthrenus (Nathrenus) ambericus3 sites
- Attagenus hoffeinsorum3 sites
- Balticoroma serafinorum3 sites
- Bibio janus3 sites
- Camponotites lignitus3 sites
- Chironomus3 sites
- Coleoptera3 sites
- Curculionidae3 sites
- Diptera3 sites
- Formicidae3 sites
- Gesomyrmex hoernesi3 sites
- Hallodapomimus elektrinus3 sites
- Hesperinus heeri3 sites
- Hylobittacus fossilis3 sites
- Lasius schiefferdeckeri3 sites
- Lyctoferus similis3 sites
- Mizalia3 sites
- Nylanderia pygmaea3 sites
- Palaeotramea cellulosa3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 21 sites for Cantharis, and this reads all of them. 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
20 references- Käfer und Polypen aus der Braunkohle des Siebengebirges4
- Fossil soldier beetles (Coleoptera: Cantharidae) of the Georg Statz Collection from the Oligocene Rott Formation, Germany3
- A Late Pleistocene fauna and flora from Upton Warren, Worcestershire3
- Three new soldier beetles from Baltic and Rovno amber2
- Two new species of Cantharis Linnaeus, 1758 from Baltic amber2
- First soldier beetles (Coleoptera Cantharidae) from the late Oligocene Enspel fossil-Lagerstätte (SW Germany)2
- New Baltic amber soldier beetles (Coleoptera, Cantharidae, Cantharinae)2
- Heer, 18472
- Description of Cantharis navka sp. n. (Coleoptera: Cantharidae), a third species of the genus from Rovno amber1
- A new fossil Cantharidae (Insecta, Coleoptera) from the Miocene deposits of Vlădiceni, Romania1
- The first species of Cantharis from Ukrainian Rovno amber (Coleoptera, Cantharidae)1
- Fossil soldier beetles of the Anders Damgaard amber collection. Fourth update1
Each of the 32 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. 8 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 Cantharis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Charles J. Sharp
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Cantharis 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Cantharis”
- 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 itCantharini through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758