Chaoboridae

Chaoboridae, commonly known as phantom midges or glassworms, is a family of fairly common midges with a cosmopolitan distribution. They are closely related to the Corethrellidae and Chironomidae, and adults can be distinguished by specific features of their wing venation. The family includes approximately 55 aquatic species distributed across about six genera.

Chaoboridae

Piet Spaans · CC BY-SA 2.5 · 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
phantom midgePBDB
Sits inside
CulicoideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 221 million years on record.

The record covers at least 237 Mya to 15.98 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 241.464 Mya to 11.63 Mya.

Middle Triassic — about 1 of 112 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 112 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 3 of 112 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 2 of 112 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 21 of 112 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 64 of 112 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 3 of 112 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 112 occurrencesEocene — about 13 of 112 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 112 occurrencesMiocene — about 4 of 112 occurrences246–238 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences238–230 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences206–198 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences198–190 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences190–182 Mya — about 1 occurrence182–174 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences174–166 Mya — about 2 occurrences166–158 Mya — about 4 occurrences158–150 Mya — about 7 occurrences150–142 Mya — about 10 occurrences142–135 Mya — about 1 occurrence135–127 Mya — about 2 occurrences127–119 Mya — about 28 occurrences119–111 Mya — about 33 occurrences111–103 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences103–95 Mya — about 3 occurrences95–87 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences55–47 Mya — about 1 occurrence47–39 Mya — about 2 occurrences39–31 Mya — about 10 occurrences31–23 Mya — about 1 occurrence23–15 Mya — about 2 occurrences15–7.0 Mya — about 2 occurrences237 Mya15.98 Mya246 Mya7 Mya

112 occurrences of Chaoboridae on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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

112 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

37 formations

Gurvan-Eren — 46.38°N, 93.95°EGurvan-Eren — 46.99°N, 95.46°EGurvan-Eren — 48.07°N, 91.65°EGurvan-Eren — 48.45°N, 92.27°ELaiyang — 36.78°N, 120.67°ELaiyang — 37.03°N, 120.79°ELaiyang — 36.76°N, 120.64°ELaiyang — 37.01°N, 120.86°ELaiyang — 37.05°N, 120.96°EMogotuin — 44.12°N, 106.92°EGlushkovo — 51.71°N, 116.93°EGlushkovo — 51.92°N, 117.62°EIchetuy — 51.27°N, 108.10°EIchetuy — 51.72°N, 108.28°EIchetuy — 50.64°N, 105.43°EIchetuy — 50.78°N, 105.53°EGidarinskaya — 51.32°N, 119.55°EGidarinskaya — 52.15°N, 120.71°EBukukun — 49.44°N, 111.13°EBukukun — 49.70°N, 111.74°EUda — 52.37°N, 111.25°ESharteg — 44.14°N, 95.77°EHotont — 47.37°N, 102.39°ETurginskaya — 50.01°N, 118.93°EMangutskaya — 51.73°N, 115.82°EMangutskaya — 50.08°N, 112.78°EAnda-Khuduk — 45.12°N, 101.65°EAnda-Khuduk — 45.39°N, 101.84°EItat — 56.17°N, 93.17°EJiufotang — 41.14°N, 119.74°EDalazi — 42.65°N, 129.61°EYixian — 41.52°N, 117.77°EYixian — 41.95°N, 118.89°EShouchang — 29.36°N, 119.25°EShouchang — 29.73°N, 120.36°EYantang — 29.80°N, 118.33°EYantang — 29.92°N, 118.51°EGreen River — 39.00°N, 108.00°WDzhil — 42.70°N, 77.20°EDolgan — 70.17°N, 86.82°EKarabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°EUkurei — 52.31°N, 117.04°E

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The named rock units Chaoboridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 13 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 23 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Chaoboridae and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

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

Found in the same rock

4,119 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 90 sites for Chaoboridae, 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

47 references

Each of the 112 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. 35 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 Chaoboridae

Credit
Piet Spaans
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itCulicoidea through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Edwards 1920