Elateridae

Elateridae or click beetles are a family of beetles. Other names include elaters, snapping beetles, spring beetles or skipjacks. This family was defined by English zoologist William Elford Leach (1790–1836) in 1815. They are a cosmopolitan beetle family characterized by the unusual click mechanism they possess. There are a few other families of Elateroidea in which a few members have the same mechanism, but most elaterid subfamilies can click. A spine on the prosternum can be snapped into a corresponding notch on the mesosternum, producing a violent "click" that can bounce the beetle into the air. The evolutionary purpose of this click is debated: hypotheses include that the clicking noise deters predators or is used for communication, or that the click may allow the beetle to "pop" out of the substrate in which it is pupating. It is unlikely that the click is used for avoiding predators as it does not carry the beetle very far (<50 cm), and in practice click beetles usually play dead or flee normally. There are about 9300 known species worldwide, and 965 valid species in North America.

Elateridae

Sarefo · CC BY-SA 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
Also called
click beetlePBDB
Sits inside
ElateroideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 241 million years on record.

The record covers at least 241.464 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 244.4 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Triassic — about 0 of 521 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 2 of 521 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 8 of 521 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 10 of 521 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 3 of 521 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 181 of 521 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 32 of 521 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 13 of 521 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 7 of 521 occurrencesEocene — about 152 of 521 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 5 of 521 occurrencesMiocene — about 29 of 521 occurrencesPliocene — about 2 of 521 occurrencesPleistocene — about 71 of 521 occurrences249–241 Mya — about 2 occurrences233–224 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences224–216 Mya — about 1 occurrence216–208 Mya — about 1 occurrence208–199 Mya — about 6 occurrences199–191 Mya — about 4 occurrences191–183 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences183–175 Mya — about 4 occurrences166–158 Mya — about 6 occurrences158–150 Mya — about 164 occurrences150–141 Mya — about 15 occurrences141–133 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences133–125 Mya — about 5 occurrences125–116 Mya — about 17 occurrences116–108 Mya — about 6 occurrences108–100 Mya — about 4 occurrences100–91 Mya — about 10 occurrences91–83 Mya — about 1 occurrence66–58 Mya — about 7 occurrences58–50 Mya — about 7 occurrences50–42 Mya — about 66 occurrences42–33 Mya — about 80 occurrences33–25 Mya — about 3 occurrences25–17 Mya — about 12 occurrences17–8.3 Mya — about 17 occurrences8.3–0 Mya — about 81 occurrences241.464 Mya11.7 ka249 Mya0 Mya

521 occurrences of Elateridae on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. 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

521 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

56 formations

Karabastau — 42.90°N, 70.00°EKarabastau — 42.69°N, 70.41°EFlorissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WFlorissant — 38.93°N, 105.24°WMessel — 49.93°N, 8.75°EEifel — 50.11°N, 6.82°EHighbury Silts and Sands — 51.56°N, 0.06°WYixian — 41.16°N, 119.31°EYixian — 41.62°N, 120.83°EYixian — 41.75°N, 120.80°EUpper Freshwater-Molasse — 47.67°N, 8.93°EDaohugou — 41.32°N, 119.24°EShanwang — 36.55°N, 118.71°EZaza — 53.30°N, 112.09°EZaza — 53.20°N, 112.82°ETsumori — 32.79°N, 130.86°EGreen River — 38.90°N, 109.20°WGreen River — 41.56°N, 109.55°WGreen River — 39.23°N, 108.22°WGreen River — 39.63°N, 108.15°WGreen River — 41.82°N, 110.76°WTitusville Till — 41.62°N, 79.64°WPoole — 50.72°N, 1.88°WPoole — 50.65°N, 2.11°WPoole — 50.65°N, 2.06°WJinju — 35.13°N, 128.10°EJinju — 35.86°N, 128.42°EAllenby — 49.44°N, 120.54°WAllenby — 49.45°N, 120.59°WFirkanten — 78.10°N, 14.20°ECattamarra Coal Measures — 30.26°S, 115.23°EBlackstone — 27.62°S, 152.75°EAshfield Shale — 34.09°S, 150.76°EAshfield Shale — 33.91°S, 151.19°EMenat — 46.10°N, 2.90°ESalt — 47.69°N, 7.53°ELilstock — 51.95°N, 2.20°WShiti — 24.46°N, 111.50°E

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The named rock units Elateridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 32 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 93 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Elateridae and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Elateridae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

6,521 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 212 sites for Elateridae, and this reads all of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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

124 references

Each of the 521 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. 112 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 content3

Picture of Elateridae

Credit
Sarefo
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Photogrammetry

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Elateridae indet. · ypm:ent:620618

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itElateroidea through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Leach 1815