Ceratopogoninae

Ceratopogonidae is a family of flies colloquially known as no-see-ums, sand flies, or biting midges, generally 1–3 millimetres in length. The family includes more than 5,000 species, distributed worldwide, apart from the Antarctic and the Arctic. Ceratopogonidae midges are also one of the best-studied cocoa pollinators.

Ceratopogoninae

Scott Bauer, USDA ARS · 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
Sits inside
CeratopogonidaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 75 million years on record.

The record covers at least 93.9 Mya to 18.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 13.82 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 547 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 85 of 547 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 547 occurrencesEocene — about 346 of 547 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 37 of 547 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 79 of 547 occurrencesMiocene102–99 Mya — about 1 occurrence99–96 Mya — about 3 occurrences96–93 Mya — about 4 occurrences93–90 Mya — about 8 occurrences90–87 Mya — about 1 occurrence87–84 Mya — about 9 occurrences84–81 Mya — about 15 occurrences81–78 Mya — about 14 occurrences78–75 Mya — about 14 occurrences75–72 Mya — about 14 occurrences72–69 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences69–66 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences66–63 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences57–54 Mya — about 5 occurrences54–51 Mya — about 8 occurrences51–48 Mya — about 8 occurrences48–45 Mya — about 2 occurrences45–42 Mya — about 2 occurrences42–39 Mya — about 2 occurrences39–36 Mya — about 133 occurrences36–33 Mya — about 185 occurrences30–27 Mya — about 2 occurrences27–24 Mya — about 26 occurrences24–21 Mya — about 11 occurrences21–18 Mya — about 21 occurrences18–15 Mya — about 50 occurrences15–12 Mya — about 6 occurrences93.9 Mya18.5 Mya102 Mya12 Mya

547 occurrences of Ceratopogoninae on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

547 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

14 formations

Barstow — 34.95°N, 116.83°WBarstow — 34.94°N, 116.83°WForemost — 49.83°N, 111.70°WRott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°ERaritan — 40.47°N, 74.32°WRaritan — 40.43°N, 74.33°WKheta — 71.31°N, 99.56°EArgiles d'lignite du Soissonnais — 49.33°N, 2.66°ENaibuchi — 47.44°N, 142.76°EBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°WMazantic Shale — 17.15°N, 92.70°WNiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°EYanigua — 18.98°N, 69.45°WPomahaka — 46.01°S, 169.24°EKishenehn — 48.39°N, 113.70°WBattle — 49.24°N, 105.21°W

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The named rock units Ceratopogoninae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 398 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ceratopogoninae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Ceratopogoninae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

3,706 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 86 sites for Ceratopogoninae, 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

53 references

Each of the 547 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. 41 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 Ceratopogoninae

Credit
Scott Bauer, USDA ARS
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ceratopogoninae 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 itCeratopogonidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Newman 1834