Chrysididae

Commonly referred to as cuckoo wasps or emerald wasps, the hymenopteran family Chrysididae is a very large cosmopolitan group of parasitoid or kleptoparasitic wasps, often highly sculptured, with brilliant metallic colors created by structural coloration. They are most diverse in desert regions of the world, as they are typically associated with solitary bee and wasp species, which are also most diverse in such areas. Their brood parasitic lifestyle has led to the evolution of fascinating adaptations, including chemical mimicry of host odors by some species.

Chrysididae

USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab from Beltsville, Maryland, USA · 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
Also called
cuckoo waspPBDB
Sits inside
ChrysidoideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 119 million years on record.

The record covers at least 119.57 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 121.4 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 2 of 50 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 22 of 50 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 50 occurrencesEocene — about 22 of 50 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 50 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 2 of 50 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 50 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 50 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences120–116 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences107–103 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences103–99 Mya — about 3 occurrences99–95 Mya — about 8 occurrences95–91 Mya — about 2 occurrences87–83 Mya — about 4 occurrences83–78 Mya — about 3 occurrences78–74 Mya — about 3 occurrences74–70 Mya — about 1 occurrence58–54 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences54–50 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences50–45 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences41–37 Mya — about 3 occurrences37–33 Mya — about 18 occurrences33–29 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences29–25 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences17–12 Mya — about 1 occurrence4.1–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence119.57 Mya11.7 ka124 Mya0 Mya

50 occurrences of Chrysididae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

50 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

6 formations

Foremost — 49.83°N, 111.70°WKheta — 71.31°N, 99.56°EFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WAkrabou — 30.51°N, 4.84°WTurga — 50.83°N, 116.19°EEscucha — 42.64°N, 2.72°W

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The named rock units Chrysididae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 36 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Chrysididae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Chrysididae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

3,055 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 25 sites for Chrysididae, 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

25 references

Each of the 50 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. 13 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 Chrysididae

Credit
USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab from Beltsville, Maryland, USA
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Chrysididae 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 itChrysidoidea through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Latreille 1802