Chelonariidae

Chelonariidae or turtle beetles is a family of beetles in the superfamily Byrrhoidea. It was described by Blanchard in 1845. There are 3 genera with around 300 described species. Little is known of their ecology, though it seems they are associated with the roots of orchids and the nests of ants and termites. Their exoskeletons are heavily sclerotised and their limbs can be effectively retracted into their bodies due to the presence of socket-like cavities. Adult specimens have seed-shaped bodies that are typically colored brown or black with lighter patches.

Chelonariidae

Desmond W. Helmore · CC BY 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
DryopoideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 100 million years on record.

The record covers at least 121.4 Mya to 20.45 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 125.77 Mya to 13.82 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 1 of 5 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 5 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 5 occurrencesEocene — about 3 of 5 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 5 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 5 occurrencesMiocene128–124 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences39–35 Mya — about 2 occurrences35–31 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences23–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–15 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences15–12 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences121.4 Mya20.45 Mya128 Mya12 Mya

5 occurrences of Chelonariidae 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

5 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.

Chelonariidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Chelonariidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

634 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Chelonariidae, 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

4 references

Each of the 5 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. 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 Chelonariidae

Credit
Desmond W. Helmore
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Chelonariidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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 itDryopoidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Blanchard 1845