Cryptophagus
Cryptophagus is a genus of beetles in the family Cryptophagidae, the silken fungus beetles. It is distributed across all the biogeographic realms of the world. Like most of the other beetles in the family, these are fungivores, feeding on fungal spores and hyphae.

Francisco Welter-Schultes · CC0 · 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
- CryptophaginiPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At least 55 million years on record.
The record covers at least 56 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 59.24 Mya to 11.7 ka.
12 occurrences of Cryptophagus on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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
12 occurrences- Paleocene8%
- Eocene58%
- Pleistocene33%
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
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The named rock units Cryptophagus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Cryptophagus and its relatives
EoceneWhere Cryptophagus and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
952 taxa- Aleocharinae3 sites
- Curculionidae3 sites
- Agabus florissantensis2 sites
- Agathidium2 sites
- Amara powellii2 sites
- Ambositra villumi2 sites
- Aphaenogaster mayri2 sites
- Aphodius granarioides2 sites
- Ataenius patescens2 sites
- Bezzia eocenica2 sites
- Bibio wickhami2 sites
- Brachycera2 sites
- Brachypogon2 sites
- Brachypogon (Isohelea) prominulus2 sites
- Brachypogon balticus2 sites
- Bruchus exhumatus2 sites
- Cardiophorus lithographus2 sites
- Ceratopogon2 sites
- Ceratopogon forcipiformis2 sites
- Cercyon2 sites
- Chrysomelidae2 sites
- Coleoptera2 sites
- Ctenobethylus goepperti2 sites
- Culicoides2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Cryptophagus, 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
11 references- New Miocene Coleoptera from Florissant2
- New silken fungus beetle species (Coleoptera, Cucujiformia, Cryptophagidae) from Rovno amber1
- The first Eocene species of the genus Cryptophagus (Coleoptera, Clavicornia, Cryptophagidae)1
- Third contribution on Rovno amber silken fungus beetles: a new Eocene species of Cryptophagus (Coleoptera, Clavicornia, Cryptophagidae)1
- Marine Isotope Stage 9 environments of fluvial deposits at Hackney, north London, UK1
- Palaeoenvironmental interpretation of Middle and Late Wisconsinan fossil coleopteran assemblages from western Olympic Peninsula, Washington, USA1
- The fossil Coleoptera of the Two Creeks Forest Bed, Wisconsin1
- La faune entomologique des gisements Mio-Pliocènes du Massif Central1
- Some Tertiary fossil insects1
- New fossil Coleoptera from the Florissant beds1
- Fossil Coleoptera from Florissant in the United States National Museum1
Each of the 12 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 Cryptophagus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Francisco Welter-Schultes
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Cryptophagus was found in Smithsonian Open Access and Sketchfab.
MorphoSource 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 itCryptophagini through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Herbst 1792