Diaspididae

Diaspididae is the largest family of scale insects with over 2650 described species in around 400 genera. As with all scale insects, the female produces a waxy protective scale beneath which it feeds on its host plant. Diaspidid scales are far more substantial than those of most other families, incorporating the exuviae from the first two nymphal instars and sometimes faecal matter and fragments of the host plant. These can be complex and extremely waterproof structures rather resembling a suit of armor. For this reason these insects are commonly referred to as armored scale insects. As it is so robust and firmly attached to the host plant, the scale often persists long after the insect has died.

Diaspididae

(Photographs by Raymond J. Gill, © 2003 California Department of Food and Agriculture, published in PLoS Biology unde… · CC BY 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
armoured scale insectPBDB
Sits inside
NeococcoideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 88 million years on record.

The record covers at least 100.5 Mya to 11.63 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 106.3 Mya to 7.246 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 6 of 17 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 2 of 17 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 17 occurrencesEocene — about 7 of 17 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 17 occurrencesMiocene — about 2 of 17 occurrencesMiocene108–105 Mya — about 2 occurrences105–101 Mya — about 4 occurrences101–98 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences95–91 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences91–88 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences71–67 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences67–64 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences57–53 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences53–50 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences50–46 Mya — about 2 occurrences46–43 Mya — about 3 occurrences43–40 Mya — about 2 occurrences26–22 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences22–19 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences12–8.7 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences8.7–5.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences100.5 Mya11.63 Mya108 Mya5 Mya

17 occurrences of Diaspididae 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

17 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

7 formations

Eumeralla — 38.77°S, 143.25°EEumeralla — 38.76°S, 143.22°EEifel — 50.11°N, 6.82°EMessel — 49.93°N, 8.75°EFoulden Hills Diatomite — 45.53°S, 170.22°ECarlentini — 37.21°N, 15.14°ETupuangi — 44.26°S, 176.17°WTaratu — 46.30°S, 169.91°E

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The named rock units Diaspididae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Diaspididae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Diaspididae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

277 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 16 sites for Diaspididae, 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

5 references

Each of the 17 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 Diaspididae

Credit
(Photographs by Raymond J. Gill, © 2003 California Department of Food and Agriculture, published in PLoS Biology unde…
Licence
CC BY 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Diaspididae 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 itNeococcoidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Targioni Tozzetti 1868