Dynastinae
Dynastinae or rhinoceros beetles are a subfamily of the scarab beetle family (Scarabaeidae), named for their rhinoceros-like horns. Other common names – some for particular groups of rhinoceros beetles – include Hercules beetles, unicorn beetles or horn beetles. Over 1,500 species and 225 genera of rhinoceros beetles are known.

Anaxibia · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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- Also called
- rhinoceras beetlePBDB
- Sits inside
- ScarabaeidaePBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At least 37 million years on record.
The record covers at least 37.71 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 48.07 Mya to 11.7 ka.
14 occurrences of Dynastinae 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
14 occurrences- Eocene57%
- Oligocene7%
- Miocene7%
- Pliocene14%
- Pleistocene14%
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
- Florissant Formation4
- Bouldnor Formation · Solent Group3
- Luján Formation2
- Clarno Formation1
- Upper Laetolil Beds Formation1
- Rott Formation1
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The named rock units Dynastinae 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.
Dynastinae and its relatives
EoceneWhere Dynastinae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
821 taxa- Aeolothrips jarzembowskii3 sites
- Anglogomphaeschna eocenica3 sites
- Aphidoidea3 sites
- Beraeodes vectensis3 sites
- Berosus barclayi3 sites
- Camponotites cockerelli3 sites
- Chironomidae3 sites
- Chironomini3 sites
- Colopha incognita3 sites
- Culex protorhinus3 sites
- Dicranomyia (Dicranomyia) brodiei3 sites
- Emplastus britannicus3 sites
- Emplastus hypolithus3 sites
- Gonomyia (Gonomyia) indecisa3 sites
- Gymnastes (Paragymnastes) fasciatipennis3 sites
- Hydrochara woodwardi3 sites
- Ichneumonidae3 sites
- Lepidoptera3 sites
- Leucotaphus gurnetensis3 sites
- Limnophila (Limnophila) cyclospila3 sites
- Limnophila (Limnophila) deleta3 sites
- Ochlerotatus protolepis3 sites
- Odontomyia brodiei3 sites
- Oecophylla megarche3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Dynastinae, 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
9 references- The beetle (Coleoptera) fauna of the Insect Limestone (late Eocene), Isle of Wight, southern England3
- New Miocene Coleoptera from Florissant3
- Two late Pleistocene members of the white-grub complex, one of the most destructive insect pests of turfgrasses2
- Beetles (Insecta: Coleoptera)1
- Oryctoantiquus borealis, new genus and species from the Eocene of Oregon, U.S.A., the world's oldest fossil dynastine and largest fossil scarabaeid (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Dynastinae)1
- Weitere Käfer (Coleoptera) aus dem Jungtertiär Norddeutschlands1
- Fossil Coleoptera from Florissant, with descriptions of several new species1
- Käfer und Polypen aus der Braunkohle des Siebengebirges1
- Beiträge zur Insektenfauna Oeningens: Coleoptera. Geodephagen, Hydrocanthariden, Gyriniden, Brachelytren, Clavicornen, Lamellicornen und Buprestiden1
Each of the 14 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 Dynastinae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Anaxibia
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Dynastinae was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Dynastinae”
- 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 itScarabaeidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. MacLeay 1819