Erotylidae

Erotylidae, or the pleasing fungus beetles, is a family of small beetles. At most some 2 cm long, some species of Erotylidae are as small as 2 mm. They belong to superfamily Cucujoidea and contain hundreds of genera, with much more than 3.000 described species, and new ones being discovered even today. The family name, like the common name referring to their often colorful, shiny and rounded "cute" appearance, means "darling" or "beloved" ; they were historically popular with insect collectors.

Erotylidae

H.S. Gorham (text) · 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
pleasing fungus beetlePBDB
Sits inside
ErotyloideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 116 million years on record.

The record covers at least 119.57 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 121.4 Mya to 1.8 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 2 of 32 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 32 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 32 occurrencesEocene — about 23 of 32 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 32 occurrencesMiocene — about 5 of 32 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 32 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 32 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 1 occurrence120–116 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences116–111 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences58–54 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences54–50 Mya — about 1 occurrence50–45 Mya — about 1 occurrence45–41 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences41–37 Mya — about 3 occurrences37–33 Mya — about 18 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 3 occurrences17–12 Mya — about 2 occurrences4.1–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences119.57 Mya2.58 Mya124 Mya0 Mya

32 occurrences of Erotylidae 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

32 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

5 formations

Florissant — 38.92°N, 105.28°WFlorissant — 38.93°N, 105.24°WTranquille — 50.13°N, 120.51°WGreen River — 41.56°N, 109.55°WTurga — 50.83°N, 116.19°EBouldnor — 50.74°N, 1.36°W

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The named rock units Erotylidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 24 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Erotylidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Erotylidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

2,179 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 21 sites for Erotylidae, 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

27 references

Each of the 32 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. 15 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 content2

Picture of Erotylidae

Credit
H.S. Gorham (text)
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

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

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 itErotyloidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

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