Flatidae

Flatidae are a family of fulgoroid planthoppers. They are cosmopolitan in distribution and are distinguished from others in the superfamily by a combination of characters. Like all other planthoppers, they suck phloem sap of plants. Some species are known to communicate with vibrations through the plant stems. Communication may be with mates, or with ants that tend the nymphs, protecting them and gathering honeydew secretions. Adults of some species have brightly coloured forewings which are tougher and known as tegmina unlike the membranous hindwings which are used for flight. Although a few can be identified by their coloration, most species requires dissection and examination under a microscope with access to literature on already described species.

Flatidae

Charles J. Sharp · 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
Sits inside
FulgoroideaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta

Time the record covers

At least 35 million years on record.

The record covers at least 56 Mya to 20.45 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 66 Mya to 13.82 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 0 of 10 occurrencesPaleocene — about 2 of 10 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 5 of 10 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 10 occurrencesMiocene — about 3 of 10 occurrencesMiocene67–65 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences65–63 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences63–62 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences62–60 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences60–58 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences58–56 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences56–54 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences54–53 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences53–51 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences51–49 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences47–45 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences45–44 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences44–42 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences42–40 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences24–22 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences22–20 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences20–18 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences18–16 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences15–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences56 Mya20.45 Mya67 Mya13 Mya

10 occurrences of Flatidae 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

10 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

Maíz Gordo — 23.53°S, 65.02°WGreen River — 39.46°N, 108.41°WNiubao — 32.84°N, 91.41°EFur — 56.92°N, 8.83°EMoler — 56.84°N, 9.00°E

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The named rock units Flatidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Flatidae and its relatives

Eocene

Where Flatidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

460 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Flatidae, 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

7 references

Each of the 10 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 Flatidae

Credit
Charles J. Sharp
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Flatidae 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

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 itFulgoroidea through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Spinola 1839